The City She Was

Smaller, Quieter

27 Lunatics on My Avenue At my window the present day bites into my ear with ideas I’ve liked before. The sun pushes in and out of the blue-green sphere that wavers on the edge of migraine, one, a mimicry of the other. Lunatic: The circus geek, the Glad Bag man, the shrill and pocked face on the corner. My street wears scars of real and unreal time but I’m afraid to leave my chair to see more closely. My lunatic crosses the street with all his futures. I see him every morning and take notes. Yesterday tucked in, today not. Today, seeming buoyant. Two days ago, dolorous. The notes get tucked deep in my chair’s cushion for the next day. My memory works with leniency,so I can see the outline of one lunatic through another though some have more jags. This city gets settled by broken down fire dressed as someone else,and the lunatics follow with their dustpans. My lunatic comes at night, the reason I don’t sleep. He jeers when he walks past. It comes from far inside him, like his liver’s hissing its name. I drop him down nothing because then he’ll see me, too. All of the lunatics’ variations share equity of scale. At night they’ll live in the warehouse, bunked up in tiny rows like the reflection of windows in apartments. My lunatic’s the king. He gives the others maps and directions for making their way through the city, like where to lurch and what corners are good for cigarettes. If my lunatic is a mirror, then he’s opaque. Interference rises from the manholes in the form of smoke, and the interference colludes with the sun. ...