The brick buildings on Battery Street

are covered with climbing vines,

and movies beam from the window of a corner bar,

then flicker outside on an external wall.

The images are monochrome,

somber foreign films with no volume,

just outlines that I can barely see.

I like to guess what the mouths are saying

as I wander through Belltown

in my plain black Chinese shoes and Dobbs hat,

carrying a six-pack of imported beer

and a new Tom Waits cassette.

I climb the fire escape to my apartment

because I owe rent money,

and I don’t want the manager to see me.

He waits for me in his office

like a sinister gargoyle.

No man ever worked so hard

for three hundred dollars, plus late fees.

A neighbor gave me her ancient hi-fi

and it still plays records, but I

have to shake it occasionally,

and I like to fall asleep

with the hi-fi playing softly

after shutting down the Two Bells Tavern

and wandering unsteadily home

to my apartment beside the Monorail tracks.

I work as a nanny

for a kosher Jewish family in Ravenna

and the pay is terrible,

so I decide to moonlight as a dancer

at Sugar’s, an establishment devoted

to men’s pleasure, located at the bottom

of Aurora Avenue, the colon of the city.

It is better than the Lusty Lady

where the women dance behind

one-way, bulletproof glass,

as if they were on television.

The other dancers say that I am too fat

and appear nervous, and that men

don’t like fat, nervous women.

They’re probably right,

and I quit four days later.

The men at the Two Bells are less concerned

about extra pounds and social dysfunction,

and this is fine with me, but the rent is due.

Meanwhile, the Frontier Room offers

its dusty pint glasses in the afternoons,

followed by healthier fare at the Free Mars Cafe

with its array of bones and hubcaps

nailed haphazardly to the fence outside.

There is a lurking certainty everywhere that

Something Big Will Soon Happen in Seattle,

but I fall so far behind on the rent

that I am forced to give up my apartment

and move to an abandoned school bus.

Eventually the developers rush into Belltown

and everything closes-the Dog House bar

with its Dick Dickerson organ singalongs,

a favorite of elderly men and women

who croon along to Andy Bennett tunes,

and Byblos restaurant, where the comical owner

rages like a thunderstorm

and then, just as abruptly, grows placid.

He smiles sweetly as he places the meal

of hummus and stuffed grape leaves

upon my table, then returns

to the back room and starts screaming again.

This is not my city any more.

Only the Two Bells remains, and it is full

of computer professionals who wear khakis

and boat shoes, and brag about stock portfolios

while they sample the soup of the day.

The pay phone on the nearby corner

where I once groped the young writer

from the defunct alternative paper

is long gone, and the intersection looks bare

even though cars are everywhere,

all of the drivers in search of their spoils

as they race in circles around each other

and grab for nuggets in the new Seattle gold rush.

The rain was falling like artillery

on a chilly March evening

while the four of us huddled

around a tiny wood stove

in a damp farmhouse in the forest.

We rubbed our hands together

in front of the fire,

and the flames sparked abruptly,

making popcorn sounds

as the wet wood ignited.

It was one of those nights

when no one had much to say-

words fell to the floor

like sacks of laundry

and remained there, unattended

until the entire room was filled

with the stench of dullness.

My visiting boyfriend was an attorney

who had followed me from Chicago

to a tiny island in Puget Sound

where I lived with Chris and Debbie,

two women I'd met on the highway

only a month beforehand.

Debbie owned a dog

who'd roamed the same highway

while in heat,

searching for a willing partner

to alleviate her strange discomfort.

Eventually she coupled with a canine

who had bad genes,

and then gave birth to a batch

of deformed puppies, who lay now

in a jumbled pile in the nearby barn,

attended by their anxious mother,

waiting for their fate to be decided.

We humans had known their fate for a while,

but never discussed it openly.

Debbie was a single mother

who had migrated to the Northwest

from a southerly direction,

her sullen toddler son and the dog

tossed into the back of her car

with their few possessions,

stopping only to purchase soda,

disposable diapers and cigarettes.

Now she had a squirming mess

of defective puppies

but no money for a vet bill

for their humane extermination.

Still, Debbie was nothing

if not intrepid-

she suddenly rose to her feet,

strode purposefully across the room,

and heaved herself over to the corner

where her shotgun lay.

She lifted the barrel to her shoulder

and, while everyone stared at her

with stupefied amazement,

she casually stated, “Well,

might as well do it now.

There ain't no sense in waiting”

and stormed outside into the rain.

A minute later,

the gun fired six times

and then everything was quiet-

at least until Debbie came back inside

sat down beside the wood stove,

snapped the door open,

and threw a new log on the fire.

when you first fall in love

she's willing to do anything

to make sure you're happy

he explained from the stage

as he strummed his guitar

ever so gently

with the fingers and thumb

of one of his enormous hands.

the minute you open your eyes

in the morning, she is standing

beside the bed

with an overflowing tray of food

and you ask her

my, what's that?

and she replies sweetly

that she made you breakfast.

on the edge of the tray is

a steaming porcelain cup

filled with coffee,

and she offers

the entire package to you

without another word,

then lies down beside you

under the covers.

she touches your chest

with fingers warm

from holding the cup,

curls her body around yours,

and dozes lightly while you eat.

many months pass, and

one solemn morning

lying quietly beside her

you realize she hasn't

even made coffee

for a long time,

and you ask her quizzically,

why don't you cook me

one of those pancake breakfasts,

like you did

when we first met?

but instead of rising,

she rolls over quickly

looks you straight

in the eye, and snarls,

fix it yourself!

and that's how you know

the thrill is gone.

I don't blame you

I blame your mother

and the three months you

spent in limbo, as if

you were still in the womb

draining the embryonic fluid

while fretting, knowing

a change would come,

and it most assuredly

would not be good.

You live in that space

between arms,

those appendages

that refuse to embrace you,

and are rendered helpless

by your constant need

for touch, no matter

who offers it.

I have the larger hands,

but they are too small to cover

the gulf that separates you

from the very thing you

desire the most.

Those first three months

of your life,

in the Catholic orphanage,

watching the nurses pass

your crib, as you cried,

you learned that it was

best to say nothing

and to refuse security-

but five decades later,

you still stretch your arms

and beg for entry

into any room

that has a spare bed.

I liked my name just fine

until the day in fourth grade

when I discovered

that it meant “wild cow”

in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.

The book was a thick tome

with golden-edged pages

that was stuffed

with an unimaginable

quantity of words,

and it sat on a wooden podium

in the back of the classroom

with its covers

spread open invitingly.

This new edition

contained every word

in the English language,

including proper nouns,

names and their origins.

“Leah” was at the

upper-right-hand corner

of the 682nd page,

so its presence

was impossible to miss.

One of my sharp-eyed classmates

spotted it one day,

during an odious class assignment

which involved

looking up obscure words

while thumbing through

the dictionary's heavy pages,

and then painstakingly

copying definitions onto pieces

of lined notebook paper.

Discovering that my name

had a bovine connotation

was considerably more interesting

than homework,

and this fascination

blossomed into a terrible flower,

until my arrivals at school

in the mornings

were always welcomed

by ritual choruses of mooing

that only ceased

when the teachers yelled

for silence.

My classmates asked what flavor

of milk I was giving,

and sometimes I played along,

said plain or chocolate,

or no, I wasn't giving milk

because I wasn't actually a cow.

Finally, I transferred

to another school

where they didn't

use Webster's dictionary

and the mooing ceased-

but it was years

before I learned to like cows,

or could even

hear the word “cow”

without thinking of my name.

PROZAC

The fear

of dropping

whatever it is

that we’ve been working on

to face the radiating terror

that illuminates our bones

is what drives our existence

into a frenzy of avoidance

with a whole industry of tools

designed to help us elude it.

It’s a wonder any of us

even get close,

because each attempt

also pushes us further away,

we hop on the coals

until the heat forces us

to leave,

when perhaps the heat

has the answer.

Who knows?

We’d rather be spectators,

watch someone else do it,

retire to some place

that is pleasant and warm,

perhaps with a view

of the water.

I’m no different,

and I look through catalogs

stapled together

by other people

as I sit on my couch

and dream

of a life devoid

of introspection.