Chapbook Selections From Web Del SolSECONDHAND SMOKE
Overnight our seaside resort became winter dusk in Detroit. Tall buildings stared me down at dusk, and like rush hour denizens pressed their gray bodies into mine. Like me they were all insomniacs. Their shadows quivered in coffee cups, tasting of secondhand smoke. One corporate center whispered it had always wanted to open its windows, empty its offices and corridors of paper and plastic furniture, just lift off, the wind blowing through its hollow stairwells. Were it to open one window at a time, you would hear its soul like a flute or maybe a clarinet. The funeral parlor on Sixth Street was afraid of heights. It had dreams of sailing away with the cathedral at Chartres. Always in love with Gothic sorts, especially those bedecked with gargoyles, I imagined sinking slowly, watching the fish enter the chapel, feeling the pulse of warm waves and sand at my feet. There are spaces in things and spaces between that hold the color of sorrow, the soundless movies no one watches, playing and playing on our walls. Better than anyone, these listless structures understood the strain of memories, your footsteps on their frigid tile. And how I could not follow, and they held me there in their yellow light. from Why They Grow Wings, SilverfishPress, 2001 Home |