New York

New York


She sits inside;
there are miles of it,
ever since the telephone,
ever since the radio;
all of it with windows that open
to windows
and cramped apartments
that cannot melt ice.

She's older than Mr. Bell,
but he thinks it's love.
He thinks she's a woman
or something that can be reached,
that those red baked things
holding her up are legs--
that go all the way down
to the cracked pavement,
the trash
and no parking spaces;
like nasty little veins
which have begun to show her age.
He thinks he can offer something
to someone who's seen it all.

The sadness of womanhood
maybe
is as old as her brick work,
so when it rains
the power goes out,
and the phones,
because old man Bell,
he's on the outside of her,
where it's colder even than on the inside.

And she talks
about the apple
because that's all she knows
or should know.
She's a troglodyte
in her cave
full of shadows
passing for people
and rats with wings
which are not afraid
of the sound of approaching feet.

If I were to throw a stone into her eyes,
it would not make a sound
but when it rains
and the power goes out;
she sits,
and she waits.


C.L. Bledsoe


Posted over on Velvet Illusion