here's me in midtown

happy holy days from 57th street...where women actually wear fur....happy holidays LP and Adrienne, Adrian and Leo...in a fire-warmed living room on College Court. The couches are scratched, the music is on, the white wine is out. Leo plays with the cats, especially the one who's cross eyed; she feels like velvet. LP makes food as if she knew (she does), Adrian shares a sound bite. Adrienne is happy to be there. They want to call me collectively. LP is perturbed - she doesn't know if it's ok out here, it = me....It's fine, Ma...The Barrett-Mills' in various expanses of Northern California, California Northern...Karlene with her lovely, decent smell and black lashes driving around Tully, and College, and Sylvan, through 99, maybe 580 ; everything is wrapped perfectly and attributed with perfect handwriting. Everything is showered and thoughtful. Everyone is taken care of. She whispers to Ricky if he is still sleeping - in the room with the matching beds we used to sleep in when Gramps was still up...the whole affair is tied together by one sparse, strong Christmas tree...Pili, Mina, and P.I.O. - they walk over a muted grey-green, flat pallet of bite-sized-rocks rendered soft by ancient waves somewhere in the southeast of that haughty island - boxing day means things come to you in boxes? Pili and Mina look at photos from 7 years ago and this is already history. Mina tells me she's lost teeth and I lose my shit. PIO with the tight jaw when he drops the babies off. If he were holding an acorn in his mouth when he showed up at her house it'd be a paste before the goodbye. Too proper, everything is too proper; everything's in a bottle, written down on pages, or burned onto celluloid, isn't it?...Pablo, Sabina, Ana Paula, Paula Catalina / Catalina Lao, the cemetery with Luis, Beto, and Marina; Nelson's shadow...tropical sun beats - no christmas trees...no doubt pablito wants a drum set or tennies or music - he needs to be heard goddamnit. i lost touch as always and thinking about them every day is useless and brings no one anything. anyone anything / anyone nothing / no one anything / no one nothing... la fabi / la flaca, ana lucia / hermana, berengena / pero no asi, with her new, cocoa infant who sounds like france but dreams about popayan, the valley, san antonio church...it's always the same, with different names.

happy holidays from midtown, wherever that is.