wrote this on Saturday in my class @ the Vet Center: 

prompt: write as many nouns as you can think of in 5 mins. then using one or more of those nouns, write for 15 mins. 

Nouns (w/some adjectives added): air conditioner in the hallway/a book with a broken spine/grapefruit soda/a high cliff/an old boyfriend/a sharp wind/a very noisy raven/a limping dog/a dusty road/a melting block of ice/a bruise/a ladybug/a beached whale/pink shorts/old smelly sneakers/a wooden tennis raquet/a library/a broken window/a horse/an empty house/a fairy tale/a bank of threatening clouds/a long summer day/an abandoned well/a man who used to be handsome/green eyes/an overgrown orchard/a blue workshirt/muddy boots/an old radio/a fire escape...

This morning on the way out of the apartment I stubbed my toe on an old air conditioner blocking the hallway.  It didn't bleed but hurt enough to have me limping down all five flights of stairs from my apartment to the street.  On the ground floor I noticed an odd smell - odder than the usual smells of forty people and their various animals living in close quarters in the middle of another breathless NYC summer. I'd left my animal - a cat - with a friend for the weekend - to assuage some of my guilt at leaving town for some fresh air when she (the cat, not the friend) never got any. It was seven a.m. and already sweltering. I decided to ignore the smell and the broken window in the salon on the ground floor and catch a cab to Grand Central. The subway would be cheaper but I would pay fifteen dollars to not have to wait in that viscous stifling air - the blast furnace of the Second Avenue station.  Grand Central was relatively empty and I thought of the late night trips I'd made through there - returning from teaching in the suburbs and the early mornings I'd stood there pack and hiking sticks in hand, ready to climb that weekend's mountain. But not today.  Today I was off to visit an old boyfriend - a man who had once been handsome and now was just sad. On the train I sat across from a woman in pink shorts wearing old smelly sneakers and looking like nothing more than a beached whale.  I turned away from her and concentrated on the bright scenery flashing by.  I got to the small station, hailed a cab and was soon standing in front of an empty house. A sharp wind came off the high cliffs to the north of the house.  There was no sound other than a loud raven objecting to my presence.  I pushed my way in the front door: nothing but dust and spiders.  I walked through the house and found a book with a broken spine, a wooden tennis racquet with no strings, an old radio that did not work and a blue workshirt covered in grease stains. In the back was an overgrown orchard and a memory of green eyes. I sat on an old lawnchair and watched the gathering clouds all day - a storm rising over the river. I would wait until the rain came. 

(c) 2009