WRITERS' BLOCK

(Sappho, Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Step out into the day and observe Mr. Hubert who is mowing his lawn at six AM on Sunday out of vengeance and Bobby Herbert who's locked out of his house after being out all night drunk and his wife inside the door in her PJs crying and Francis the old mutt who's wandered out into the intersection at the end of the block and is just sitting there blocking an outraged hipster in a BMW on his way to rock climb and then the sprinklers come on and catch a lab trying to hump a shitzu in front of the house and all the time the sun is going in an out of clouds changing the lighting and the grass keeps growing and Fenster McGraw is crawling out the back window of his lover's house and stumbling into the alley pulling up his pants, and is spotted by the ever vigilant widow Winnie Wildwood with her nineteenth century naval spyglass who's had her suspicions about that Wilson woman anyhow and Mr. Hubert turns off his lawn mower and people stop their homicidal fantasies and go back to sleep and here comes Jack Frankle with Jennie Pearson on his lap riding his electric wheelchair in from late night partying, laughing and swinging around a fifth of Jack Daniels at which sight Winnie Wildwood has a stroke and pushes her wrist alarm and then the paramedics and the cops light up the neighborhood and those who blessedly got back to sleep are awakened again in a rage and during all this, nine cats in nine windows sleep soundly. All of this in one block.