About a month ago I came back to my apartment around midnight to find a 68-year-old woman sitting in a chair in front of my drunken neighbor Boomer's door. She had been beaten by her son and dropped off by her daughter, and, since I couldn't persuade her to call the police, I made up the sofa bed in my front room and let her sleep there for the night. She turned up at Boomer's again right after Isabel, with her brutal crack-addicted son, because the storm had destroyed her house. By the end of the day I was driving her to her sister's house. On the way, she told me that God had finally had enough and had taken her house so that her son could no longer steal from her.
Last night she turned up again, very drunk, and I drove her the 40 miles to her sister's again. I got nothing done and no sleep.
It makes me crazy that I can't seem to make a poem from this—I'm jealous of Sam Gwynn. And it bothers me that when she's not around I worry more about the damned poem than about her, and that when she is around I'm irritated at being pulled away from poetry and blogging.
9:59:05 PM
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