poetry_in_motion kerry it looks warmer than it really is, not cold enough for a hat but my ears are freezing, and the light is bright and blue-yellow-white. today was garbage day which ironically means there’s trash all over the place because the sanitation workers pick up the cans and heave them in the general direction of the truck, then throw them back on the pavement. walking louie on garbage day is an exercise in patience; he’s veering wildly from right to left, stopping on a dime and running backward, sneaking pizza crusts and licking mysterious spills and investigating and generally losing his mind. it’s like he thinks he’ll never get to go outside again. it’s not late but this is a neighborhood where things close early. emmanuel’s deli is closed, primo’s is closed, the little clothing boutiques with their eerie faceless mannequins are closed. and i’ve got this song stuck in my head: “she blinded me with science.” this song reminds me of my cousin scotty. when i was a kid my aunt told me scotty loves this song–she said it effusively, the way she says about him–and i always remembered that because scotty has down’s syndrome and hasn’t said more than a few words since he was 15, and it’s hard to know what he likes or dislikes. i don’t have the whole song stuck in my head, just a couple of the verses, and this keeps happening to me lately, only having one or two verses of a song stuck in my head, and they play over and over when i’m trying to sleep or think, making sleeping and thinking impossible. we walk by petals, the florist. i always love their window displays; the flowers are fabric, i’m sure, but they’ve packed so many in there. you can’t see beyond the flowers and into the shop at all. blinding me with science–science! it’s poetry in motion! we pass by the south philly pharmacy where the pharmacist has a man-bun and is surprisingly attractive for a pharmacist, and then adore me salon, which gets me stuck in a new dizzying loop. adore me, adore me, adore me i have to wonder what it’s like to work in a place like that, whether you have to say “adore me” when you answer the phone. can you imagine spending a day saying “adore me” to perfect strangers? on 17th street, the whole block between shunk and porter is made up of identical brown three-story rowhomes. they have the same front porches, so that if you’re sitting on your porch, you can’t turn your head without possibly making direct eye contact with someone else sitting on their porch. the only differences are in the details–window frames painted black or white, front doors that have been replaced. she’s blinding me with science–adore me–poetry in motion everyone has their easter decorations out. the windows are filled with bunnies and pastel colored eggs, and there were iced and sprinkled easter cookies for sale at cacia’s. rocco invited us over to celebrate easter and i said absolutely not–easter in new jersey with a bunch of conservative catholics? over my dead body. it was bad enough spending easter with my conservative methodist relatives in georgia, and now i’m not obligated to celebrate any holiday, except christmas and i’m slowly trying to get out of that. i wonder what it will be like here on easter, with st monica’s church so close by and all the tiny italian women. when we get home i pull louie’s little jacket and harness off and he takes off like a rocket into the house, grabs a toy from the pile and goes springing from couch to chair to floor to couch to chair. the walk gave him even more energy. and i feel tired for some reason. maybe it’s the neverending merry-go-round in my head: poetry in motion, adore me, adore me 220330 ... epitome of incomprehensibility (I love the rhythm of this, how thoughts mix with each other and with outside observations. Poetry in motion indeed!) (As for song lyrics, the words "I bless the rains in Antarctica" were just running through my head, because "down in Africa" is apparently "Antarctica" now.) 220331 what's it to you? who go blather from