The Men in the Seersucker Suits

There is no shade in this city. There is no shade because there is no rest. Or if there is shade it is a long walk from here, along the boulevard where the scions of the learned stroll or jog before returning to their comfortable conveyances, whereas you have, on your way to the post office to send news of your body’s newest whereabouts, realized this day with your limbs the constitution of a brave new world of class: those who are carried, those who are cool, those who will not drown in their own bodies. Do you hear above how the jets swoop and pass, leaving behind their sooty wake? Call it commerce but imagine it a species of eternity. It’s as if they will never land, will never be pulled from the sky. How the sun burns and the creatures bite: is that a migraine blooming or some new urban epiphany writ in a sullied heaven? Don’t be alarmed. You’ve only killed one thing today, and as you listen to the gods speak through several channels and in many languages, each braving a searing weight of glass, you realize this is not, by such standards, the worst sin. Worse things you can’t imagine: all life curling up to die in the sun. Welcome to the veil of Arcady. Welcome to the day the heavens burn. All the while the city throbs, the city pulses on. Look: you can see it move. You can see men wandering the lanes as if they could walk on traffic. The men in the seersucker suits are walking into the sun. They do not mind heat, they do not mind glare. They are cool because they can be. Everything’s all right because it can be.