54th & Lex.
i.
Light lays down
on a sticky sidewalk,
tired and distracted
at finding another corner to turn
in these possessed rectangles
of Manhattan.
ii.
They were strong and tall, my friends,
and I followed on to see
what I might see
for free
time has hungry lips.
iii.
A head I saw
with blue kerchief
at an open door,
the knitting hands,
a homely scene
Vermeer
might fix
inside his mystic box.
iv.
I saw two cats in grey disguise,
dispassioned,
at the open door to her magic carpet high above
floating
o'er
a frantic jungle
in scuttle and sweep
as dashing and dirty
as any Amazonian square
whose wind, a caffeine child
ashamed of its sickly cousin the sun,
chases twixt the legs
of these sudden mountains,
in the unrelenting glee of having forgotten
the boredom of indian flat land,
to whip around the buttock
of
a cigarette,
a short black skirt,
a tainted exit,
a smoker’s joy,
a draw of fresher air than that which stayed within.
Finbar Wright/copyright/xvii.xii.mmiii