By Alexander Coosemans

In the bath I wrote a poem comparing fruit to genitalia and in our den tried to relax but the record player’s so fussy it requires adjustment, like a harmony of adjustments between the settings for arm tension and anti-skating, more understanding and sensitivity than I have, which is like none, for record players. And as the snow melts it seems everything is bent over wheezing. Charlotte asked if I could have any pet in the whole world which would it be and I said the ones we have. The avocado on the label of the bath lotion was split down the middle with its pit exposed, the color softened as the morning sky from the center, out. It lay with an arm behind its head thrown back cooing, made an O with its mouth. I got so upset with Lily I had to breathe out, and felt myself doing it. And then she cried and said her friend’s dad died, and she realized she had an F in advanced LA for missed assignments, and I had to apologize and we hugged but I think it was good. And there was more to be done for the friend whose dad died, but what? I got upset about having to clean up after the hot cocoa but it took no time at all. I saw myself in that moment as my mom’s brother Dave, and how I regarded him in his kitchen watching him scrub, wondering why. The senselessness of it all that animates us like a wound spring. The fact you have to like fucking mist these records to keep the static off, to keep them from skipping or gathering dust, just like us.

Categories: musings, parenting, prose

Tags: parenting, postaday, prose, still life, stream-of-consciousness, vinyl, William Pearse writer