Through the ozone layer of Kazakhstan I look at the dirt mobbed masses
crabbling together their faces. They’re searching, searching bleary-bad, and trying to care in unnatural ways. Big old fried chicken buckets rimmed in golden grease trick bungled old mothers into obesity. Every man carries his sad eyes around in his left hand.
Down on the block a week ago old Jim is standing on his soapbox and swinging his arms in howling arcs that trail hot white light and birds fly in and out of the doors behind his ears.
We held ourselves into pockets, and escaped from every breath, and when I turned to you to say something I forgot who you were and why you were next to me, and then I forgot what I was going to say in the first place. I let you put your arm around me for a little while but then walked out into the blue streetlit corridor between the boozing cars and drunk-lined stink alleys and cardboard houses. You had this hurt expression on your face and rolled your eyes around in your hand like two Chinese Baoding stress balls.
Old Jim screams, the earth is mine! Cure me, AIDS! We are fighting fire with fire now, crickets! And the boozing cars pass, hot blue light steaming from potholes and the streets are golden and electric and once in a while people forget who their loved ones are and walk out with no memories into the dirty mob without any conception of what they are losing. Sometimes their mothers or brothers or boyfriends try to remind them, that one lost soul that thinks he can make miracles in another’s mind, but this works about as often as the epic comebacks from longterm comas. Sorry, spud, but these days have mechanical failure at times so just sit back and rub yourself against the ride until the sore spots turn tricks for flowers and the dust just chatters against your teeth in the moonlight and roll your eyes back across the sidewalk because hey, you’re happy now and happy later and sometime if your forgetting time comes, which it may, just remember that the person whose life you’re leaving is worth it.
