By Iain Haley Pollock
This morning, the lovers—
who last night were slurring and stumbling
and when I looked out, each gripping
the other’s taut throat in a clench of callous
and nail—sit on their front steps. The woman
smokes an idle cigarette. The man lounges
two steps down from her and leans his head
into her lap. Beer cans and husks of blue crab
from their cookout scuttle by in languid breeze.
The woman flicks the stub of her cigarette
into the street and kisses her man on his forehead.
In the kitchen behind me, Naomi
turns on the coffee grinder. I look back at her
but don’t bother to complain about the racket
this time. I’m more interested in the lovers.
Or, I was—they’re boring me now.
I liked them better when the radio was pumping
from their open window, and they were clawing out,
under the streetlight, the terms of their love.
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We had brunch on Sunday with our next door neighbors/catsitters at a gorgeous restaurant in Kirkland right on Lake Washington, Le Grand Bistro Americain, where I had eggs and potatoes with hollandaise and their excellent bread. Our table was in a window, so we could see the boats and ducks, but we'd hoped to go walk along the water while we were in Kirkland to try to see the swans, but it started to rain hard before we finished eating, so instead we went to Safeway and had an otherwise quiet afternoon watching the 49ers beat the Eagles.
I needed a break from football in the evening, so we ate pizza while watching the Golden Globes. I was ready to turn them off as soon as last year's raging antisemitism raised its head, but weirdly enough (by which I mean not at all surprisingly) all the extremist antizionists were entirely silent about the Middle East, lest they should be asked to support a nascent Iranian revolution by people who hate Hamas more than they hate Israel. Now we're watching the start of the new season of All Creatures Great and Small for some dog fun.
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