A Story written line by line.

A Secret


Sh! It's a secret she said, skipping into the rain away from him, dropping her umbrella behind her. Hey! he said. He jumped up and started following.

Pouting, he reached for her, running and grabbing at her but could not catch her. She darted into the door of storefront smelling of dust.

She looked around laughing, hiding behind bookshelves and turning off & on an old lamp. She snapped her fingers and whistled, tricking him. She was here she was gone.

Hello nurse, she said. He hid behind an old grandfather clock and watched her wave money under the young woman's nose. You think $5 will be enough?

he sneezed, & she threw her head back laughing then skirted by him down the steps, breezing by him as if on air. The steps made no sound.

They ran for an hour, through the park and the garden, the light was getting low. He grabbed at her and said I am no longer a boy!

Make a wish! she said, looking at him deeply with her bright eyes, lashes wet from the rain, her hair dripping. I have no candles he said.

tears started running down his face in frustration. Why are you running? he yelled. Stand still for a minute so I can see you! I want to see you!

Time seemed to drift slowly after that. There was a bridge, and and old man & woman. Laughing and crying. Things began to get difficult.

The lights went on and the city streets were illuminated. The cobblestones were gray and bumpy. His head began to throb & his nose bled.

Still she laughed, & ran away again & again. The weather was hot & humid, damp. He felt feverish and began to shiver. His boots were wet. His toes were cold.

She looked beautiful in the dusky light. Her hair was both sticking to her face & billowing like a cloud. She could not stand still.

Little electric lightening bolts were bouncing off her, & it was as if she was dancing even when she was standing still, gracefully poised.

They ended up at a house at the end of a long lane. The street was dark, but she was light-filled. He grabbed her hand and said STOP, Please

He was gasping as if he were drowning. He felt his lungs exploding, he brought her close to him and felt her chest heaving up and down. STOP!

He whispered in her ear I want you please I want you right now. He smelled her hair, her neck, she smelled like grapefruit and honey,

like Christmas morning or 4th of July. Stop he whispered and began to unbutton her blouse, stop. She looked into his eyes and slowly began to fade.

The lines of her head and arms and legs appeared to erase before him, her hair becoming lighter and lighter her face whiter & whiter.

Until at last the only thing left was her eyes and fingers and her belly where his arms were wrapped around her. One by one her fingers

disappeared and then her burning eyes one at a time closed and were gone, lastly her lips, where he kissed her and then in a flash she was gone. He stood alone in the street, dark and eerie.

The wind started softly howling, whipping up around his feet, and away in the distance he heard laughing and the tinkling of glasses and a snapping of fingers and quite distinctly in his ear he heard Shhhhhh, it's a secret...

Sweet Baby to Be..

My Dearest 1st Baby Grandchild,

I just found out about you two days ago. You are growing in your mother's stomach, made from my son and another woman's daughter. With God's will you will be born in April in the spring when the rain comes and the grass grows and everything begins to be alive again, and the earth smells like dirt and flowers. Your parents will both still be 28, born one day apart from each other during the summer solstace. I do not know much about your mother yet, but I hope to get to know her well. Your father was my little boy, and I watched him grow and raised him from the time he played in a sand box, until he became a man living on his own. I was 22 when I became his mother, and will be 50 when I become your grandmother. Nothing could bring me more pleasure and I feel as if you are inside of me. As if I can speak to you already, your soul floating through the atmosphere, gracefully yielding and spinning, until it lodges firmer and firmer into your mother and comes out strong when you leave the womb kicking and alive.

It's very late as I type this, and I cannot sleep though I am tired. The rain just stopped, and I can almost hear the stars twinkling up above. If I listen quietly I can hear the birds in the trees, and the distant roar of cars on 280. It's the beginning of Autumn, almost October, 2008. I pray for your safe entry unto this earth, and wish you welcome.

all love and peace. Goodnight sweet baby.

Eating Alone for 6

I'm sitting here while my dinner is simmering, Odie & Popie watching me, and I want to get the recipe down quickly, which is why I'm typing erraticly. And my spelling is off. I'm listening to Neil Young..."You are like a hurricane...I wanna love you but I'm getting blown away...before that moment you touched my lips that perfect moment when time just slips away..."
and it's a perfect September night, a few nights past the Harvest Moon. I have a feeling I might eat alone. But this is a beautiful dish, and it should be shared. What are you doing? come on down. I swear, we'll just eat, and we'll just be friends.

I'm making an Italian Fish Stew and typing in between..

Ingredients
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
5 Hot Turkey Sausage links, cut into bite sized pieces, organic
1/2 sweet onion, chopped & peeled
4 chopped nice red tomatoes
1/2 can of Jersey Fresh tomatoes chopped from Whole foods
1 jar expensive italian jarred sauce from Whole Foods (I love Daves Gourmet - DG - Red heirloon)
1/2 lb calamari tubes, fresh, sliced into rings
1/2 lb scallops, cut in half
1 piece firm white fish on sale (this week I'm using Skate - which was on sale and it's firm - buy enough to feel a small piece to how many people are eating and cut it into that many pieces)
1/4 lb cleaned and cooked shrimp
small jar crab meat, cooked
organic green pitted olives
basonigal (basil)
olive oil
sea salt
ground pepper


ok, first pour about 3/4c olive oil into a hot deep skillet, and when that heats up, add the garlic, until browned. Then add the sausage, and cook until 3/4 way done. Then add the onion, cook that until almost translucent, and its browned and smells great, then add the chopped up tomatoes, cook those until soft, then add the chopped tomatoes in the can, and the jarred sauce and simmer until the sausage is almost done - a while. It's great already. You could eat this and be done with it. But we're not. Then add the calamari, and cook that about 5 minutes, add the olives, then the scallops - another five minutes, folding the mixture around easily in between additions. Keep the flame at a medium pace. THEN, if it's too thick add a little water...then taste the calamari, it should be nice and soft, and not too rubbery, then place the pieces of fish right on top of the whole concoction, and spoon a little sauce over it, put the shrimp in the pan, making sure it's covered, and THEN add your basil pushing it into the sauce, and cover the pan so that it simmers slowly over a very low heat. Then come and write something to someone. Or dream about your love for a while. Set the table, light the candles. Smoke a joint. You're almost there. I better go check the food....

So the whole thing is delish...I just checked it, added my sea salt and ground pepper, and very gently stirred it with a teaspoon, avoiding the pieces of fish so they don't break -- maybe you shouldn't be stoned for this! That's the deal, is to cook all of the unbreakable foods first, starting with what needs the most cooking first. So, that means sausage, which in a dish like this you can't cook too long, and ending with the white fish.

And THEN, when it's all ready to go, and you are about to heat up the frozen rice that I am addicted to and you get a nice bag of it at whole foods, which takes 8 minutes to cook...so you're cooking your rice, and you make a nice round spot in the middle of your stew, and take the drained can of crabmeat, and put right in the middle, spooning a little sauce over it, to heat it up. It's already cooked.

Voila! Table's set, make sure you have some nice italian bread, some Italian soda, which I love, or wine which I cannot drank (damn!) and you're ready to go. Oh, some candles.

I'm all alone...
this is so sad. But alas, tomorrow I will take the huge amount of leftover's to my mom's house and we'll have it for lunch. And then I'll have it for dinner tomorrow night. And by then others will discover it...This is what I like, food over and over....

..and maybe I'll freeze some.

You know where to find me. Come eat...

Mangia! Ciao!

The Harvest Moon

Dear Papi,

Tonight there is a harvest moon in the sky. It is big and round and golden orange, like a picture. The wind is cool, and swirls around my ankles as I sit in the garden, smelling the sweet scent of honeysuckle, and lemon verbena, spearment and basil. It is the end of summer, which means the beginning of fall.

Every harvest moon I think of you. I can remember many different journeys, looking out the window and thinking of something you said or did or having the feeling that something good was going to happen. As if we were going to run off. Oftentimes you moved right through me and I could feel you, as if you were part of my skin, and throat, and chest. If I took a breath, you would breathe with me. All this in the car driving, looking at the harvest moon.

This is true a true story. It happens like this, the harvest moon. Where it attaches people to people. As if their fingertips are sewn together, or their shadows are connected. You don't even have to know each other. You just have to be open to the surprise.

Tonight from my bedroom I can see the moon illuminated through a large spiderweb on my porch. A big spotted spider has been building it, day by day by day. And I've been watching this spider spitting it's thread out and swinging from point to point, creating a lovely web to catch it's prey in.

Moon. Spoon. Croon.

Lisa

Daddy oh Daddy Sweet ole Daddy Sonnet

He were alive just
one month ago in
voice and skin spotted with
age and soft. In eyeglasses
and wristwatch, and
small neat hands to grab you in hello.
In flag pin worn in his lapel.
In teeth resting in a cup next to the bed,
in full head of sliver hair, in unshaven whiskers on his
chinny chin chin. On the weary look on his face,
and his watery blue eyes; his partched lips
drinking from a straw, or sucking on ice chips.
In his laugh, and a kiss
from his sweet ole daddy lips.
--lw 9/6/08