The City

Out of the pavement palms rise like chimneys in a jungle.
Their seeds fall to the earth virile as stones.
The freezing wind gallops forth
Til the chill passes through us like ghosts.
This is the quick deceleration of the motionless;
The redoubled silence of the vow-takers;
The collapsed light of dusk for the born-sightless.
This is the serious indifference
Serene as trees.

These are the high-canopied windows that tease
Then reject the light, their barren panes
Innocent of a single eye.
These are the cliffs and canyons of switchblade
Angles and gun barrel pillars.
Behold the pedestrians fit as new gears.
Nearby the stranger whose rolled-stroller years,
Scarless as an infant's arse,
Ferry him slowly toward the ultimate peril.

From an alleyway laughter skids the walls like a pinball.
A mutiny of adolescents range the footpath unchained.
They are like elfish gangsters in pyjamas and slippers
To whom hard labour is a cluttered room.
A handsome boy lags by head-bowed as Judas.
And there, another, less symmetrical and amber-eyed
With the look of a gaunt wolf; he is different, he is ivory-faced
And menacing, like a red-tipped ice-pick seen out of place.
He passes by without incident.

These are the cafes, shops, stores
With attendants poised like matadors.
This is the petty Chinese garment's last stand,
Free unto the very end, until the final exchange.
This then the bloated container’s masterpiece:
Newly-adorned, the taxpayers regal as popes.

This is the moral species in mock resplendence
Near the intersection of a thousand hopes
Where the stranger, the wolf-boy,
The Judas collide inside the ageless
Crosshairs of pity.
This is the end my pretty.
This is the city.

© Rhett Talley