The sword in the garbage pokes at the cat flung there bow three days past. Meows come every five minutes. They were more frequent before, but they died down, it has been dying down and knows it, okay. Okay. Now the street the cat walked on before being abruptly flung into the garbage has seen much joy and terror and abstraction. IT has passed from the hands of men, like I have. I have passed the street, forsaken the street, stomped onto and out of the street, four times. I have come back four times. And the rock eyes of the street look up my skirt, mocking, assessing, pulling me, until I feel the difficulty and necessity of each step.
“Beatrice, go to the market,” Mark says to me, wrenching my eyes from the lidded garbage and to his naked scarred chest. His voice sounds sweet and almost fatherly, so my eyes soften and I begin to get up, and he says, “Fucking right.” I limp out, though my legs are fine, it’s psychosomatic, and can’t be helped until I’m outside where there are kids littering the stoop. “Get up! Get up! Get out of here,” I scream. They push their lazy eyes up to me, admire, ponder, and finally begin to slosh their skin away, pushing the soaking sun’s rays off of the stagnant and burning chest flesh. I walk hesitantly behind them, and their pace is slow. They know it is slow. They are sending a “fuck you” my way. I speed walk past them, disgusted in knowledge: those little pre-teens are probably checking me out.
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