Quartet
by Howie Good
1
I had just turned six. The universal symbol for handicapped hadn’t been invented yet. Birds dragging broken wings left their black footprints on the stairs.
2
My parents made me take piano lessons. The piano hated me. I spent Hanukkah watching Christmas lights blink on and off on the house across the street.
3
My shadow walked ahead. It seemed odd that the stairs that went up were the same stairs that went down.
4
A man stood washing an apple at the sink. All the windows facing the other side of the world were open. Veiled women beckoned him into the Kasbah. The X on the sidewalk marks the spot where he landed.
Howie Good (website), a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the new poetry collection, Dreaming in Red, from Right Hand Pointing. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to a crisis center, which you can read about here. He is also the author of numerous chapbooks, including most recently The Devil’s Fuzzy Slippers from Flutter Press and Personal Myths from Writing Knights Press. He has two other chapbooks forthcoming, Fog Area from Dog on a Chain Press and The Death of Me from Pig Ear Press.
qarrtsiluni 
strange how it melds and means. and meanders. love these fragments, howie.
Cool piece. The line:
“It seemed odd that the stairs that went up were the same stairs that went down.”
– moved me. Good work.