It was that particular East Coast kind of dismal.
  Thick heavy air
but it had cooled off
 the sky had been mud colored
and buildings were an endless array of ugly old factories
and apartment buildings
 her mother had a basement apartment with a backyard
in alphabet city
 she completely cleaned it up and was doing performances
at La Mama
 she smoked pot and listened to a lot of seventies Dylan
then a junkie put a gun in her face and she abandoned it all
years before she had been the first woman taxi driver in D.C.