It seems some things are never considered. Strange signs beckon down darkened alleyways.
Night.
Everything he sees, he touches. Black cats. One. A rattle and dropping of cans as lids come off
and hands rush in and around. The night's heaviness. Everything thicker, longer. It goes by in
long streams out sides of eyes.
August. Everything occurs now, the entire city. Young men panhandle corners. An obliterating
blue sky. What is a city as it sweats? A series of corners, walls, rooftops. Hands in pockets and
on shoulders. A gripping of wrists. Car rims.
He is not one of these people, he thinks, sipping coffee.
A woman empties her purse at some of the young homeless outside. Her anger is a face for
words, a love of years.
A motorcycle roar. Women in white pants covering six-inch heels. Army boots. Dreadlocks. A
child in loafers and red tie unblinking at the sun. That atoms are small, animals are larger. He
holds a cellular phone gentle, light as a cigarette. Basketballs erupt and spit.
This digressing is something learned, taught, abandoned. Something kept. Or more, something
to sluff off, jeer at. Life as digressing from topic, sidewalk, street. Life beginning from re-
beginning. The starting from starting. Bar talk creating more bar talk, the liquor working the
muscles until bone, and then there is an empty fragile silence waiting to be filled. A culpability
for destruction born not from ennui but betrayal. A whiskey sour is a hammer to the jaw closing
into a bland, unexpected night.
This silent heart's beating. She disappears into airports within airports. The present? The way
skin touches skin. An unacceptable advance upon ceaselessness.
He makes up jokes, word games, sees only color and shape. Accepts a set of sneakers, baggy
jeans, breasts, hair, walls, tails, lamps, tires, trees. Wait for it.
Reach out. A thousand swimmers arching towards this surface. Is he counting the actual stars
behind a sheltering sky? Two.
Numbers are dialed and postponed. Remain on hold.
–––
Now, enjoy Arise by Travis Kurowski
