A bulging woman teeters across the crosswalk in a motorized wheelchair. Her gray pants, her black shirt, her medically-braced booties all ripple under skin’s pressure. Each movement is a bounce forward then back. A bobblehead’s street life. She has no smile, no neck, no elbows. She has no chin, weighted lungs. Could you breathe in such a heavy body? Could you breathe? I thought about her life and felt trapped. Our spirits are centrifugal forces – hitting inside around and back. Where does that energy escape if not through our physical bodies?
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And another woman had pants the same lemon green as a picnic umbrella. Did you know a long time ago they were called “Bumbershoots”? I learned that from a 7 year-old this year who learned it from a 60 year old teacher who learned it from god knows where? A construction cone is buried in the sidewalk, bursting through the concrete like a comic book half written – the hero lost.
When I walk my pink boots creak like old floorboards. Now everywhere I go I’m on the brink of falling through.
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