A twenty
I found a twenty on the floor and picked it up. If it had been a hundred I would have tried to find its owner. I didn't think about how I'd do that, because it wasn't a hundred, it was a twenty.
A twenty was a kind of threshold. You bought lunch and that was the better part of a twenty. You took the train from Jersey to Brooklyn and back again, that was more than twenty.
They had already axed pennies. Nickels were next. Squirrels were still dealing in acorns.
On Valley Road on Saturday night, a woman yelled to her party, "I'm short a dime." They yelled back, "Just leave it." They turned towards the restaurant. "Would you rather get a ticket?" yelled the woman. Cars whooshed past. "At least cross at the corner," she yelled. Would she stay with the meter all night?
The town is soft, where people have left the leaves.
Drivers switch to high-beams as they approach me, perhaps they take my trot for that of a deer.
When I was a child I imagined a party, a bed heaped with coats. Myself lying under all the coats. Forgotten in the best way.
My mother would put cover the dough with a dish towel, and put the covered bowl under my goose feather quilt so it would rise. My sister said: Is that why we grow when we sleep?
A goose feather quilt seemed luxurious to me, as did my mother's fox fur hat that she wore on special occasions. Some things that seemed fancy in America, drew attention here, were routine in the old country.
I'm doing a subscription drive, a la NPR or PBS, but without the umbrellas or totes. Because let's be honest, we don't need more stuff. Only more stories and more art.
All subscriptions through the end of the year will support my four-week residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. I received partial funding from VCCA, I'm fundraising the rest. Details here.
As of today, I've raised $400, only $1100 to go. Thank you to my newest subscribers!
In lieu of totes and umbrellas, paid subscribers will get a list of my favorite books this year. Check your inbox tomorrow! And please buy them at your favorite indie bookstore, or borrow them from your public library! Jeff has enough money.
