“Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?”
- Allen Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California"
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Joseph Newell, for I walked into the shadows under the bridge with a do-rag self-conscious looking at the pavement.
In my guilty anxiety, and searching for feeling, I went into the xenon homeless shelter, yearning for your exaggerations!
What plights and what predicaments! Broken families sleeping outside! Endless rows of former husbands! Battered wives in the rafters, babies in the lockers --- and you, Mike Faenza, what were you doing down by the water coolers?
I saw you, Joseph Newell, aimless, lanky old drifter, wandering between the mats on the ground and eyeing the security guards.
I heard you fending off questions from each: Who mugged the social worker? What price cigarettes? Are you my Dealer?
I wandered in and out of the flickering lights of eyes following you, and followed in my imagination by the shelter detective.
We strode through the sleeping bodies together in our solitary fancy stealing unfinished bottles, possessing every sunburned tit, and never passing the case worker.
Where are we going, Joseph Newell? The gates lock in an hour. Which way does your thumb point tonight?
(I close my eyes and imagine our postponed game of dominoes and feel ashamed.)
Will we sleep all night on the stony streets? The buildings add shade to shade, lights out in the offices, we'll both be arrested.
Will we crawl lusting for the lost Texas of opportunity past black SUVs in otherwise empty parking lots, home to our abandoned warehouse?
Ah, dear brother, darkskin, hungry old dragon-tamer, what Dallas did you have when Oncor quit pumping their power and you arose in a smoking cloud and watched your dignity disappear in the furious winds of charity?
No comments:
Post a Comment