Men with Broken Banjos

This February I'm not empty, but I might be an aquarium with just water left in it. A painter friend had a show last week. She said she occupies the same hollow. She's alone all day, too, painting tiny jeweled bricks and hair nests and feathers. All her conversation is used up talking to herself.

A different friend was over, and I opened my mouth. I wasn't sure what I was going to say. I thought I must say something. Now I don't remember if I said anything. During the day I listen to music but don't sing along. I whistle. A whistle isn't words. Where are my words. That's not a question. I'll find them. I'm finding them. I found some of them today.

The music I listen to could best be described as "men with broken banjos." The men have gaps in their front teeth. The men are slim as blades of grass. The wind whistles sharp against the flatness of these men. Sometimes the men are women. The heads of their banjos are busted, and the faces of cats peer out. Don't ask me for names.

I know I'm almost finished writing what I'm writing. (A small book.) Short as it is, it took long enough. I'll hand it over when I'm certain. I keyboard the limp parts. They harden.

I thought I saw a ghost today. I've seen ghosts, and I've pretended to see ghosts. Today I didn't see a ghost. I thought I did. A thunderstorm stretched black outside. I wore the mood like a thin condom. Someone slammed a car door, and I convinced myself I felt the slam in my balls. I hung up the laundry. From the corner of my eye something quick and white and large enough to touch the floor and the ceiling all at once stepped out the closest window. A passing vehicle reflection, maybe. My glasses are cheap and susceptible to glare. I remove them when posing for photographs. The (no) ghost stirred my nerves. Good for that ghost. I knitted some rows on a scarf. I wrote and rewrote and unwrote. To unknit a piece of knitting is called "frogging." Like the yarn after frogging, the words I had on hand were kinked. The texture from their reuse was good to read.

Great. Wow. The luxury of this kind of work. No one depends on it, and yet I know some people who might tell me otherwise, so I continue. One of them asked me for a story. That story is at Squalorly. What a good name. You could give a baby that name, but only when it's crying.