10

 I attend a poetry reading in a tiny community orchard deep in the small intestine of Lents. Lents is one of those neighborhoods that has been up-and-coming for as long as I can remember. The orchard is charming though, tucked down an alley behind a trailer park. I know most of the readers though they’re from a couple of different poetry circles I’ve never seen overlap before. The sun blazes directly overhead and during the more timid readings, which I can’t quite hear, I allow myself to space out and watch the bees bobbing in the dense clumps of oregano. Kids run and yell-whisper to each other between the fruit trees. Off to one side stands a table covered with chapbooks and grapes. I’ve never seen so many damn bees. I can’t keep my eyes off them.

After the reading, I walk with two women I know up 82nd Avenue a ways. While it has gotten tamer than it was, 82nd is still pretty sketchy, lined with unlicensed strip clubs and chop shops and Chinese restaurants that look like they’ve been closed since the sixties. Considering how generic and bland everything in town is becoming, I find the scuzz refreshing. There’s a certain unsavory charm out here, though I find it best not to linger in one place for too long. People sometimes yell things, throw stuff from their car windows. There’s a lot of honking. Best to keep walking.