Carnegie Linen 874 East 139th St. Bronx NY 10454 718-402-2499 USDOT 179013, Cards

Delicious Pizza, Delicious Pizza, Delicious Pizza, Delicious Pizza

Child in a Cello Case

I dropped my gum.

A woman walked a dog so large that I could lie inside its stomach like a child in a cello case.

But someone else had that idea first so there wasn't room inside the dog.

Walk.

I waited at the light beside a cellist. A pair of small eyes peered out from a little window on the side case.  Seeking my eyes, they asked if I could possibly talk to the musician but I pretended to be looking past, just a little bit beyond when my focus fell on my waist.

My chewing gum had stuck to the brass button that closed the waist of my jeans. I pulled the wad away but a bit remained so I stood there picking at the remains with the edge of my fingernail.

There had been that tarnished penny that stuck to the wad of gum I had put in my pocket. I had to pull the pocket all the way out then work to get the gum free from the fabric by forcing my fingernail under the penny and lifting, wedging the nail in slowly as the gum spread but gathering at the same time the gum with the tip of my finger. It all came loose with a wad of mauve lint. I picked the lint off then pinched away all but a layer of gum from the penny's Lincoln side. I found a pencil and dug into the layer, pushing the layer back and finally getting it to roll from the surface when the pencil point broke. Its small black impression looked like a stinger left in spearmint flesh. Using the broken tip of Ponderosa pine, I pried the rest of the gum away and still underneath there was the green tarnish on the copper, the same green as some sea swallowed antique, of a cold classic athlete or warrior fished from the Adriatic and sat to dry beneath the fat mobile clouds.  The penny spent. The gum tipped pencil dropped in the front pouch of my backpack, forgotten then thrown out at the end of the year. 

The gum on my nail, removed from the brass button at my waist, was wiped on the passing dog I couldn't ride.     

In Passing

100 Work in Progress: Commercial

Rector St, Trinity Place, Mylar Balloon, You Are Here

A Mylar balloon, slightly deflated, three floors up, shaped like a letter, hovers in a living room, above an ottoman, silver, sagging like the spring. I'd love to buy all of your weapons, but nobody sleeps in a house with a Mylar balloon. I'll celebrate once your depletion is complete.

Manhattanites

Tastes Better in a Cone

I sat in an all-day meeting staring into the whorls of my coworker's hair wondering what expert motion brought it to nest there, looped with a single plum-colored tie in its loose bun.  The motion brought to mind the winding stems on wristwatches and I considered for a moment what it would take to make a wristwatch out of hair.  Without a tick, with hardly a sound, the mass of months wound up and kept in place by a single rubber band, clean and cared for, the day's shadow passing through the median of her highlight's soft annuli, marking the time.

Mudleg Coils Retubing Welding

The Blinking Sky

Planes pass between here and the late day sun pitching instants of darkness, a blinking sky.