Thursday, March 12, 2015

Poem for Thursday and Federal Hill

After Skate
By Carol Muske-Dukes

He glides in on his single wing, after the signs go up. After
the truck leaves with the bunkbeds, grill, broken hall mirror.
After Scout is dropped off at the shelter. After the last look,

on the dying lawn. In the backyard, where the empty pool
stands open; he pops an ollie over the cracked patterns of tile:
tidal waves in neat squares. He kneels, checking angle against

depth. He lifts off where the board once leapt and leapt: cannon-
balls, swans: endless summer. He hurtles downward, kickturning,
sparks grinding hard on gunnite. Round the bend: the kidney,

the heart. The stone path where once glowed tiki torches at
the kingdom's ukelele gate. He rockets out of the dead lots each
day, past swingsets and shut-off sprinklers, his board struck up

from whirlwind. Nobody's home to the ownerless: he turns
inside their names, never minds ghosts, nothing in his wake.

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I am slightly crazed with packing and chores and work! But mostly crazed in a good way! I spent most of the day writing the review of Deep Space Nine's "Extreme Measures" that I need to post on Friday because I won't have time to work on it tomorrow. Then I dyed my hair and cleaned the toilet and folded towels and other very exciting chores! During all this we had not one but two Comcast techs visit...and our On Demand STILL is not working. Prepare for an update that we have switched to Verizon before the month ends.

Angela and Kevin came over for leftovers from my mother's birthday dinner. We took a brief walk, discussed which movie franchises are jumping the shark, and watched Cats  -- the video of the 1998 London stage production with Elaine Paige and Ken Page -- since Kevin had never seen it despite being a self-declared cat person (our cats love him and rubbed all over him). They brought Cadbury mini eggs and I behaved and only ate about 15. Here are some photos from late last fall of Baltimore's Federal Hill neighborhood:














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