DISTANCES

This morning,
my face adjusted
at a perilous angle,
I went out
into the grim
and slippery
(OOPS)
New York streets.

On Avenue A,
a lot of not-so-pretty faces
move beneath
the many tiers of light.
They distribute
their own brand
of darkness.

But I'm not buying,
keep my head up, looking
at the angles of buildings
when the sun crawls
out of its blanket,
my feelings recline
into an abstract painting

Suddenly, I'm gliding, dreamily
through the streets,
along slanted beams of sunlight,
I breathe the still life's
intelligence, and greet
all the passengers
on this particular street
as though we all knew one other
(although they eye me
as though I've missed a beat)

I stop at an old-fashioned cafe
to drink a cup, black and sweet,
and watch the clouds casually
cover the sky, completely discrete.
I smell the oncoming rain
like a familiar soup
ready to boil again

So I make my way home,
along the stains of the earth,
under the crackle overhead
like the sounds inside my head,
and settle into my bedroom
where I can view the noise
and violence of this particular street
where I grew up
from a not-quite-comfortable-enough distance.

(c) 1997 Elio Schneeman