- The City
After You Departed
- by Gary
Blankenship
-
- The city is barren of
the usual chaos
- and cacophony of man
and machine,
- only broken
sidewalks, california poppies,
- paper blown from
empty dumpsters
- fill streets with
signs of life.
-
- On the highest hills,
- temples wink
- at sins they imagine
- seen through cracked
lens.
-
- Down a palm-lined
boulevard,
- lavender sun fires
silver surf;
- beyond a single
stuttering traffic light,
- an empty barn, devoid
of roof and windows
- leans in shadows
against leafless willows.
-
- I walk past
- boot stores,
- coffee shops,
- laundromats,
-
- tattoo parlors,
- kosher chinese
buffets,
- discount carpets,
-
- galleries filled with
tapestries
- that once hung
- over our rumpled
sheets,
-
- all unlocked as if
customers expected.
-
- Smells of fig, goat
cheese and olive
- float out of alleys
full of glittering sounds
- from open air markets
long since moved
- indoors; the noise of
bargains made
- and broken falls like
rain from Babylon.
-
- Oddly, I do not find
the city odd.
- I search the pockets
of my great coat
- for a pen,
- pencil,
- stub of graphite,
- chalk,
- stylus,
- to capture fresh milk
and new hay
- before the first call
to the last prayer greets me.
-
- My pockets, even the
secret closets,
- are bare of words and
sulfur matches,
- I sit on the curb and
wait for the 11 bus.
-
- Roses in my left hand
- shed their finery,
- Papers in my right
- float to the sea.
-
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