look: luminous
"we need to hurry," he says, pressing into the night & it's the rawness of his tweed jacket that pulls him forward, this and all the dedication aligned in his features. "i don't know why," he says to me quietly, "but everytime i'm in a new city i need bookstores as landmarks. i'm only comfortable in the familiar mapping of all the pages." we have never spoken before.
hours later, we meet a vagrant poet named osiris who sways above our table, his hands clutched finger to palm and fragile as birds. "let me tell you the truth of it, brothers, sweet-faced lady" he says. his eyes looking past us, his eyes right through us. there is grey in his beard and it marks the filament of years, his cheeks high and smooth as a child's. the black scarf uncurls from his neck and he finds the hem, sweeping it back over his shoulder, covering his throat with the woollen night. the new year's sky is glossy like streetlamps & ghosts but he has the vagabond laughter of being in better days.
i see things here that i have never seen before: february daffodils and cyclamen in the bank vaults. i buy gala apples by the pound and chase seagulls that come up to my knees & we watch the canvas billows of the sunday market. on saturday t. takes me to a at dive bar at the end of the universe (the only one that survived the first earthquake) where there are stained-glass windows as dark as dry smoke. i carry a white carnation in my hands and we dance the rough-house blues. i have learned so quickly the flatteries of an absurd city; the clanging, side-seated trolleys and such irrational hills.
hours later, we meet a vagrant poet named osiris who sways above our table, his hands clutched finger to palm and fragile as birds. "let me tell you the truth of it, brothers, sweet-faced lady" he says. his eyes looking past us, his eyes right through us. there is grey in his beard and it marks the filament of years, his cheeks high and smooth as a child's. the black scarf uncurls from his neck and he finds the hem, sweeping it back over his shoulder, covering his throat with the woollen night. the new year's sky is glossy like streetlamps & ghosts but he has the vagabond laughter of being in better days.
i see things here that i have never seen before: february daffodils and cyclamen in the bank vaults. i buy gala apples by the pound and chase seagulls that come up to my knees & we watch the canvas billows of the sunday market. on saturday t. takes me to a at dive bar at the end of the universe (the only one that survived the first earthquake) where there are stained-glass windows as dark as dry smoke. i carry a white carnation in my hands and we dance the rough-house blues. i have learned so quickly the flatteries of an absurd city; the clanging, side-seated trolleys and such irrational hills.
2 comments:
a few years from now I will come across your novel in a lovely little bookstore somewhere and sigh, and say oh I knew her once, she's lovely.
your words deserve more than to just wrap the blogosphere in beauty.
well, i'm blushing a bit but thank you ever so much. you are too sweet.
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