BACK TO NATURE by Myles Boisen |
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215 NORTH FIFTH STREET
by April Salzano I never planned on staying, but we set up shop just the same, unpacked most of the boxes, assembled the beds on their frames, put some of the books on the shelves. We had just moved back from Georgia, a mission completed or aborted, I'm not sure which. Your parents were trying to help us make a home in their old house, in their town, under their wing. I didn't fit in there. It always seemed to be raining, and I had already lived most of my life in hand me downs. The neighbors spied on us, pretending to admire our son or my flowers, feigning interest in our dog. I was bored and had never learned the way into town. I would find myself on the interstate instead, heading to my own family 90 miles east, intending to stay just a day or two. You were busy attempting to work nights as a psych nurse and sleeping through dinner. I kept meaning to bond with your mother, to take her to yard sales, to unpack the rest of our things, to come back. I just never got around to it.
3336 ½ BUFFALO ROAD
| by April Salzano We found another upstairs apartment, this one without air conditioning or a bed, just two side by side mattresses on the floor. We rarely slept that summer, anxious for the District Justice to pronounce us man and wife, for the trip to London to bestow my Master's degree, a false symbol of adulthood, for the submissions and publications. We hung our hopes on such things like cheap mirrors on painted paneling. We purchased better lighting and you carried a desk home from a yard sale on your back to fashion an office. We ate Hamburger Helper with a side of Doritos and watched Naked Lunch. I pretended to find meaning in it. We smoked a lot of pot, baked brownies smeared with Jiff in lieu of cigarettes because we thought three-something a pack was ridiculous. We rolled our change and borrowed lawn chairs to watch hot air balloons ascend over Lake Erie like bright exhalations of the future.
FLAT 911 MECKLENBURG SQUARE
| by April Salzano London, 1996. The IRA. Mad cow. An international student housing trust where we whispered all day before we fell asleep for two weeks. A fully furnished flat with no couch. Two parlor chairs, two desks, one coffee table dead center. We had misunderstood the question regarding nationality on the application. We could only figure that's how we’d gotten in. The warden thought we were from Poland and Italy with dual citizenship in Germany. Our neighbors sang arias, conducted research, translated languages. Weekly dinners at the community dining hall, required, along with removing your hat because not doing so is a foible of the trust, one usually made by the Americans. We spooned custard over bread pudding and skipped the brisket. |
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