The Lower East Side

I took a walk in the sun.
The wind was blowing.

It was a dangerous day.
Thoughts of the past, of you.
Fragments embedded in a feeling.

I retreated to a store and ate a hot dog,
Then to another where I read painted words.

Later I talked to strangers who claimed
They were my friends.
A woman was among them,
Speaking from the ruins of her face.
She said she had gone to a party and never left,
Explaining everything without meaning to.

The sun stopped speaking for the day.
Shops were shuttered.
The wind was now a whip.
I fled underground into a manic train.
It shouted news from the bowels of the earth
But stayed on its level course.

A Hungarian woman waited for me
At the end of the line.
She ate three bowls of porridge
And buttered her own bread.
Her husband had a gun
And right then was wandering
Another continent seeking his revenge.
Some things never change, she said.

The city was in serious darkness now.
A light burned in the window
From which she waved.

I was in motion
As I always had been.
Away. Toward. It did not matter.
The time to go always arriving.

April 2005

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