i live alone. my own place.
three years this week. if
this were an anachronizm
i’d be on a hill name o’ nob,
tucked away in a big bed
with, well, coco the loco,
or up anza vista in a big
bed with, well, sepia the
cat, or in a big bed under
the comfy comforters with
sepia the cat at either the
old amory street spot, my
last one in boston, well,
jamaica plain, or up tower
street from the last stop
on the orange line, right
beneath that big cemetery,
the name of which i should
look up, just like the afore
mentioned station (forest
hills cemetery and forest
hills station, it turns out –
to which i want to say of
course, but there’s my
odd memory, which, to
be clear, is not memory
lessness), the former re
sidence in which i would
be snuggled up in the
same big bed as the
last one mentioned –
it made the trek from
beantown to frisco in
the summer of 2000
(this is yet more his
torical than anachro
nistic); and the latter,
nestled among the
snow-covered trees
and, just a few steps
up, gravestones older
than any i had thus far
encountered, i’d be
snuggled into the tiny
bed in one of my two
third floor rooms with
a teeny-tiny cat named
sepia. a gift? from a
human. if a cat can
be called such a thing.
but the point is, it was
never just me and a
cat. there were plenty
of humans coming and
going, at each home i
called my own, another
could just as correctly
call it his. i guess there
was the bush street place
in the “tender-nob” (a
name meant to sound
a bit less déclassé than
the tenderloin, though
that was officially its
locale) – and sepia was
ruler of that lovely studio
roost, of course – but even
there, comings and goings
and stayings overnight and
visiting out-of-towners and
entire parties and mom and
the occasional “sleepover” –
human after human after
human – would grace the
sunny apartment’s presence
with regularity for the two
and a half years in which
that was my residence.
but now, i live alone, and
have now in this, my hot
box, with but the rarest
of visitors (i can count
two from the last two
and a half years), and
not even a cat with whom
to converse who might
pretend to sleep along
side (like coco) or atop
me off and on through
out their naturally noc
turnal flitting and prow
ling and giddiness. nope.
here, it’s just me. and, yep,
this is history, and nothing
really more than that. and
i suppose that’s just fine.
