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Every morning was colder than any other. Every day in the city began in a cacophonic explosion of sunlight, grit, breakfast cereal. The needle on the record player looked the grooves on the disc over, felt them, stuck. The roads carved left-right-left in brisk lines between the buildings that were little by little pushing the sky away. All was white-and-grey, brown, water dripping off air conditioners, and rickety iron fire escapes snaking down from towers where the paint peeled. The cars would not stop when told to.
The dragon slept in the basement, its fiery snuffles floating up from the skylights of its apartment. It slept but watched, eyes throughout the grid of the streets and pavement, and also in a children’s store with foxes and baby elephants. Now and then its tail would swish.
Where we stayed there was a park where pigeons (black, white, black-white, speckled brown) bobbed along and sat together atop the street-lights. The buildings were very tall and would not fit inside a camera. One became small looking at them.
There were men and women walking dogs, but no strays, no cats in the great downtown. There was a time for cheesecake, and too many cups of coffee. There was also a time for waiting in the underground, and running through turnstiles, and (most of all) for poetry. In poetry we find life and the reason for sticking
to it.
Find myself a city to live in.
1 comment:
definitely one for the scrapbook. thank you for being a good pillow on too-long busrides.
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