TERRI CARRION: "AFTER A LONG WALK..."

After a long walk through downtown Hollywood,

Florida, past fashionable couples dining in

overpriced restaurants, past local redneck drunks

claiming territory at the Octopus sidewalk bar

and Kellyʼs Irish pub, past the pawn shop and

the strange G.D. Bazaar Ladies clothing and

misc shop with those two Felix the cat looking

clocks from the seventies with swinging tails and

shifting eyes hanging in the window, past the

hippie guy at the Mexican restaurant on the far

end of the strip, not really a hippie but more of a

hipster impersonating a hippie, who looks up at

me and says “Hi”, the only human so far to make

contact, a hippie/hipster at an empty Mexican

restaurant in south Florida, and Iʼm wearing my

Frida Khalo t-shirt and wonder if he recognizes

her, but I really canʼt stay here, or want to stop

here, so I give the guy a shy “Hi” back and turn

the corner fast, away from the trendy strip and

swirl of muzak and exotic fast food and $10

sparkly high heeled sandals, towards the end of

the strip, to the back street parallel to the train

tracks, and I walk north, past dozens of “for

rent” signs on dead businesses, “foreclosed”

properties, boarded up windows, just on the other

side of happening downtown, and I walk and

walk, and itʼs lonely and quiet, on the other side,

and I keep walking and end up at the old Publix

supermarket shopping plaza, across the street

from the new multi million dollar Young Circle

Arts Park, where tired parents watch their kids,

too many kids, play on the safe hi tech monkey

bars on the cushioned astro turf playground,

under the glowing red royal ponciana trees and

just beyond the the thick baobab trees but Iʼm

now at the Publix shopping plaza, just on the

other side, where the Haitian cab drivers hang

out, where the bus stops are, where the homeless

and druggies and beautiful freaks loiter in front

of the Walgreens and talk and share cigarettes

and ask for spare change, and finally, for the first

time during my whole afternoon journey I feel

some relief, much less sad and quite human and

connected as I watch two men argue and egg each

other on about something, I donʼt know what,

and they stare at each other, eye to eye, face to

face, sweaty nose to sweaty nose, and the moist

sun is setting behind them and an old man walks

out of the Publix with handfulls of plastic bags

and an androgynous boy in a pink shirt and tight

black stretch pants cruises by on rusty bicycle

and I start to cross the parking lot to leave and

the sun is still setting and a young couple in dirty

clothes sits on the ground in an embrace, against

the fancy new plastic but made to look antique

silver lamp post, and I cross the street between

backed up traffic and fumes, head back to my

momʼs condo, across from the golf course with

the expensive country club and a collapsing chain

link fence that keeps out the broken beer bottles

and dog shit and trash, just on the other side, and

I climb the stairs to my motherʼs condo instead

of taking the elevator which is not up to code

and breaks down often, but hasnʼt been replaced

because the building canʼt afford it, so they are

taking a chance, waiting until the city inspector

comes back and threatens to issue a fine, makes

them replace it and there are piles of dead bugs in

the stairwell, a lizard skeleton in the corner and

I enter unit 304 where my mom is stretched out

on the mauve chaise lounge that used to belong

to Doris Rothenberg, my partnerʼs mother, who

is dead, but my mother is very alive, lying on it,

watching her Venezuelan soap operas, so I give

her a kiss and go take a shower to wash away the

south Florida humidity, but I canʼt stop worrying

while I stand in the shower, I worry about my

mother falling in the shower with no one around

to help her, because we have been visiting her

girlfriends all week, all old widows living alone

just like my mom, the difference being that they

have daughters and grand daughters near them

that stop by on their lunch breaks everyday,

come by and install handles in the shower so

their mothers wonʼt fall down and they buy fancy

bath mats so their motherʼs wonʼt fall down, but

my motherʼs shower doesnʼt have any handles

and her bathmat is cheap and slippery, and I

imagine her falling down in the shower, helpless

and alone, so I feel sad again, thinking about

her death and the death of the Gulf Coast… oh

yeah… the Gulf Coast is dying, pelicans and

fisherman are dying, a whole culture is dying,

completely helpless and alone.

Terri Carrion

Terri Carrion è nata a New York da madre galiziana e padre cubano. Cresciuta a Los Angeles, ha conseguito un Master in Belle Arti presso la Florida International University di Miami. Ha progettato e curato la rivista letteraria Gulfstream. Ha insegnato inglese, scrittura creativa e poesia. Ha pubblicato poesie, racconti e saggi in riviste letterarie e antologie. Cofondatrice del movimento di poesia globale 100 Thousand Poets for Change, vive a Guerneville, in California, con il poeta suo compagno Michael Rothenberg e i suoi amati cani Chiqui e Ziggy.