oh dirty river

There were people getting drunk under the trees by the garden while we were all at work, prompting heated discussions amidst my neighbors and also plans to rip out the saplings and put in more flowers, and then one of my friends from the tutoring days showed up, and so we checked out an exhibit about Clevelandia and pondered City Issues and caught up on life over giant sandwiches devoured at a wrought iron table overlooking the scenes, of bikers and kids and Bright Young Things, and then as the night went on, the drunk girls and the bros who love them waiting to board the party buses named after Kurt Cobain and Bob Marley.


There are dishes still in the sink at home, it's hard to stay inside when the days are like this, and the nights are too perfect and there's enough beautiful distraction all around to heal the papercuts on the heart. Trawling the leftovers of the bazaar now vacating its long-held place in the landscape of strip clubs and skating rinks, driving through forgotten parts of Clevelandia, sitting on the front porch as a local metal band offroads on forklifts on the vacant lot next door the sound of "80's drums," dinner with family, banter with cousins, late nights wandering through Lakewood and laughing in nighthawk environs over tales of peonage, my front seat full of coleus and herbs, the fragrances of wormwood, hyssop and lemon balm, a steady stream of beautiful interactions that left me alive rather than exhausted. Summer hits early, the smog settles over the city, and the reunions and hopes have come alive again for now...