Cold-Water Flats
Dr Linda L Bielowski
A chorus line of closed doors
kicks away the dissonance and details
of breathing other voices in other rooms. Dirty soles scuff
and scrape slate stairs, going up and around in serpentine winding
to enter third floor walkups. Living in cold-water flats with deaf silence,
a faucet dripping a steady heartbeat of wet beads on dry buds. Paintbrushes
arrayed in sticky, peacock plumage take repose in a yellowish-red
porcelain sink. Aromatic turpentine and tempera mingle with citrus
and mold, as a bowl of oranges awaits putrid, pungent demise. A space
heater for a furnace, a hot plate for a stove, and a solitary cup of tea for
sustenance, ever Green. Books, like leather uniformed sentinels, guard
the turntable piled with Bartok's and Dvorjak's symphonies. Unfinished.
Unclaimed. A pawn ticket misplaced. And your body, still as a ferry on the
ice capped river, stiffens in the anteroom of the morgue for no-names
from cold-water flats. While seagulls rock and carry your spirit
above the river, beyond the concrete, to open air, clean freedom,
and spring thaw.
