One Hundred and Thirty Two

A mosaic of ice rests on the mucky murky water. The river is hair gel, thickgoopy stillness. The tiles are green depression glass found at yard-sales fashioned into pretty pitchers, cake platters, serving plates. But these tiles are broken bits of pitchers platters plates. They are varied, crackledspiky, chunkyfull, splinteredcutting. I use old-time pincers to bite the ice and rearrange them as my bending brain plucks out a dragon’s head, tulip, top-hat.

One Hundred and Twenty Five

This Wednesday the woman on the el across from me is reading an Amy Tan novel. She looks up, glances at me with her watery blue eyes, then returns to the page. She does this often, taking me in, as if sipping from a cup of tea. She doesn't seem to notice that I am watching her watch me. I wonder what she thinks she is seeing. I feel seen and unseen.