Stories

Winter in Portland. Like a dishwater aspic with scarves and lost pennies suspended in it.

And earrings - three times already my debonair scarf-flinging or desperate hat-pulling has cast one earring into the ether. (-nb) Perhaps that little bit of color is lying in wait to spark some interest or hope in an observant passer-by.

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Inner SE Madison is desolate; even the street trees aren't sure they want to be there. Some of the grassless scraps of land look poisoned.

There are little tomato and squash plants growing under two trees along the sidewalk near the used-Coke-machine lot. The squash are already in bloom.

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Once, these people came on a tour. I don't know if they had children with them, but i assume they did; smallish ones who could walk but sometimes rode. The children must have walked out. There's a doublewide stroller left behind. No one has come back to claim it.

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We found a gold tooth in a computer once, and a real tooth in another. A lock of hair in a scanner. People leaving bits of themselves among other castoffs.