The alms woman sits sitting in the midmorning morning mourning stitching hems and haws with a bone-needle she found in the harridan’s mother’s hatbox box, the one she keeps on her bedstead vanity next to a package of Camels and a wren’s foot cameo, a gift from a blind tinsmith with tiny ears and no teeth to speak of. ‘Fuck you Camel-maker, fuck you good and sinfully’ she wiled, dropping a stitch, a hem and a haw. Freakshow freaks, Camel-makers and a man in a hetman’s hat worn at wrong angles and weigh. ‘Some mornings begin’ she said to herself, ‘better than others.’
Albert Scrim scrammed crosswise across the crosswalk yammering at the top of his lungs, ‘Mrs. Crabstick of Upton manor eats ribbon-thin Melba with creamery cheese!’ Mrs. Crabstick preferred headcheese to cream cheese on suet crackers, unable to see the succor in the creamery or whey. She liked porker’s saltpeter, ginger aspic and Plumtree’s arrowroot biscuits, especially the tinned variety, which she doubly liked. She liked what she liked and disliked those things she didn’t like; the unlikely things that so often go unnoticed or acknowledged.
She liked liking things she liked liking, good things like ginger aspic and ribbon-thin Melbas. She disliked things she didn’t like, like creamery cheeses and scramming across crosswalks crosswise. She liked something’s better than others, and other things less than those things she disliked but might have liked if she liked those things she disliked liking. She liked freakshows and jar-lids, the sort that never seem to tighten tight round jars. She disliked bad freakshows and weak-kneed tightrope walkers and men who wore britches with link-socks and bowties tied in curlicues and bolos. She herself preferred culottes to Capri’s, red blouses to cable knit sweaters and bobby-socks to hoses. The shamble leg man liked her, the alms woman, but from a distance, not wanting to incur her wraith and colon, both of which she displayed with equal parts wreck and havoc. He liked to espy her as she shunted up and down and along the sideways, her bobby-socks cinched round the rill of her ankles. She liked to watch the shamble leg man from across the wayside, trenching his head up against the Upton Seder’s, a funny sight indeed, but well worth the bellows and titter.
Albert Scrim scrammed crosswise across the crosswalk yammering at the top of his lungs, ‘Mrs. Crabstick of Upton manor eats ribbon-thin Melba with creamery cheese!’ Mrs. Crabstick preferred headcheese to cream cheese on suet crackers, unable to see the succor in the creamery or whey. She liked porker’s saltpeter, ginger aspic and Plumtree’s arrowroot biscuits, especially the tinned variety, which she doubly liked. She liked what she liked and disliked those things she didn’t like; the unlikely things that so often go unnoticed or acknowledged.
She liked liking things she liked liking, good things like ginger aspic and ribbon-thin Melbas. She disliked things she didn’t like, like creamery cheeses and scramming across crosswalks crosswise. She liked something’s better than others, and other things less than those things she disliked but might have liked if she liked those things she disliked liking. She liked freakshows and jar-lids, the sort that never seem to tighten tight round jars. She disliked bad freakshows and weak-kneed tightrope walkers and men who wore britches with link-socks and bowties tied in curlicues and bolos. She herself preferred culottes to Capri’s, red blouses to cable knit sweaters and bobby-socks to hoses. The shamble leg man liked her, the alms woman, but from a distance, not wanting to incur her wraith and colon, both of which she displayed with equal parts wreck and havoc. He liked to espy her as she shunted up and down and along the sideways, her bobby-socks cinched round the rill of her ankles. She liked to watch the shamble leg man from across the wayside, trenching his head up against the Upton Seder’s, a funny sight indeed, but well worth the bellows and titter.
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