“
...My
niece Peggy is at
camp in the Adirondacks so I am staying in her room.
It's essence of teenage
girl: soft lilac walls, colored photographs of rock stars,
nosegays of artificial flowers,
signs on the door: THIS ROOM IS A DISASTER AREA, and
GARBAGEDUMP.
'Some ashcan at the world's end...' But this is not
my family's story, nor
is it Molly's: the coon hound pleading silently for table
scraps. The temperature
last night dipped into the forties: a record for August
14th. There is a German
down pouff on the bed and I was glad to wriggle under
it and sleep the sleep
of the just. Today is a perfection of blue: the leaves
go lisp in the breeze.
I wish I were a better traveler; I love new places, the
arrival in station
after the ennui of a trip. On the train across the aisle
from me there was a young couple.
He read while she stroked the flank of his chest in a
circular motion, motherly,
covetous. They kissed. What is lovelier than young love?
Will it only lead
to barren years of a sour marriage? They were perfect
together. I wish
them well. This coffee is cold. The eighteen-cup pot
like most inventions
doesn't work so well. A few days: how to celebrate them?
It's today I want
to memorialize but how can I? What is there to it?
Cold coffee and
a ham-salad sandwich? A skinny peach tree holds no
peaches. Molly howls
at the children who come to the door. What did they
want? It's the wrong
time of year for Girl Scout cookies.
My mother can't find her hair net. She nurses a cup of
coffee substitute, since
her religion (Christian Science) forbids the use
of stimulants. On this
desk, a vase of dried blue flowers, a vase of artificial
roses, a bottle with
a dog for a stopper, a lamp, two plush lions that hug
affectionately, a bright
red travel clock, a Remington Rand, my Olivetti, the
ashtray and the coffee cup....
”
”