Is it lame to keep publishing writing assignments? Here's another:
In this condition, stirred by men without voices, men propelling machines, metal to metal, hammers to metal, muscle to machine, hardened, thick-layed, stubborn surfaces ground to rubble; and not only by men but by women, dressed for work, in clothes that were put on after the second or third try, and tried with three different pairs of shoes, heels drumming on the kitchen floor, the bedroom floor, the bathroom floor back to the bedroom floor to check the mirror once more before drumming down the hall onto the street;
stroller wheels coaxed over broken bits of sidewalk, stroller wheels banging against the glass door of a store; tree roots cracking sidewalks, a man rattling coins inside a paper cup, teenagers on their way to school shouting for each other across the park, a radio rolled back and forth across a station that won’t come in; pigeons hacking away at a pizza crust, a paper plate caught on the side of a building; lettuce leaves slick with rot; apples with puckered skin; anything growling, as the exhaust pipe of a bus; anything that leaves a smell after its gone; anything lost in a five minute period in a five foot radius, as an earring, keys, a single glove; anything that used to fit; anything that crumbles as an old sponge; anything that falls into the space between the stove and the kitchen counter; anything sticking, anything that gets stuck, as a raindrop on a car window, anything stubborn, as candle wax on wood; anything that needs to be re-tied, anything white with dirt smears, anything dirty with white smears, anything leaking, dripping or ripping; anything shedding, crusting or looping, anything tarnished, anything shiny, anything old, anything new.
