The Brassy Girl

She was young, though not as young as she'd like you to think.
But younger than the old gasbags that snickered at her as she
Strutted by with boldly undulating curves and
Wildly changing moods and smiles so flashy
They could only be described as gaudily so.

Alluring still, despite a few wrinkles, cracks and sags
From the rumbles of the shaky ground beneath her
Towering, strappy heels, from the slap of the winds that
Always seemed to be swirling around her, and mostly,
From the strain of keeping up her saucy reputation.

Years could pass behind her, but she was still that brassy girl.
Nobody had such an audacious way of being so changeable.
One moment cold as an igloo, then the next perky as a crocus.
Towers and trees fell into a belching gulf of rended earth,
But the next morning she rose up, as usual, and sang an aria.

On the tips of her eyelashes, I could dance until sunrise.
Tracing her lush lips, I could taste espresso and sugared rolls.
On the outline of her hips, I could tumble downward,
Until I reached the edge of the sea, the end of the earth,
And then ride back up again with bells clanging.

At her side, I dreamed, my elbows right on the bar,
Sipping slivovitz with a blossom of plum flesh,
My ass barely able to stay on the barstool,
With all the wolves leaning in for a bite
Of her pink neck and drowsy eyes.

As she watched, I tasted, every steaming bite
Rolling by in a mad circus of flavors and smells,
And walked for miles beneath ancient trees,
Until my muscles screamed from her steep hills,
My mind whirring from her flirty misdirection.

As she whispered, I yearned, dizzy from the
Precipitous angle of the drop, spoiled rotten,
For every glass was full, ever bar a rooftop
With a breathtaking view, every lane lined
By flowers impossibly, always, in bloom.

She is still a brassy girl, and I love her.
In her arms, I am reminded of the beauty
That I had ignored for practical quests,
Beauty that is priceless, ageless, timeless,
And, more than ever, what I need.



 

Unfamiliar

I stepped onto a slick, stone walkway
Winding through the heart of the city,
Leading directly into a wider artery,
The very aorta of the city,
teeming and loud and jostling,
As it was years before,
Before everything changed forever.

Still the avenue seemed alive, I thought,
Though the past was long dead,
Full of air rather than blood and tears,
Seeming to move, yes, seeming to shine, but
With false cheer and gaudy glitter,
Cacophony where there had once been sweet music.

Above me, there were the same
Intricately carved arches,
The same heavy oak doors,
The same swirling, scowling faces,
Gargoyles spitting cold water,
Their hollow eyes and mouths
Stained with the muck of
Many centuries.
They were the same, but these faces
Looked upon a strange city,
A city I knew no more.

As I walked through the throng
Of shoppers and businessmen and
Truant schoolboys and lost souls,
Suddenly I spotted a familiar face.
My heart raced to see an old friend,
But as she approached,
I realized her eyes and chin and hair
Were the same, but it was not her.

Shaken, I walked off the avenue,
Turning into the entrance of the park.
There, beneath bare branches
Reaching hungrily toward a slate-gray sky,
I breathed the fresh, cold air and then,
Caught a familiar scent, the cool
Perfume I had once worn on my
Silk scarves when we danced,
At parties overlooking these same
Oak trees, this same broad green,
Under glittering lights that warmed
Our reddened faces, cheeks stained
With many glasses of wine.

I breathed deeply to capture it,
This trace of a flower
In the dead of winter, but
It was gone, slipping away,
Washed clean by the rain.
Or perhaps I had imagined it?
Was this the same place
Where we had danced and drank
And laughed and kissed?

Running from the park, I
Entered a slim alley, darkened
By tall, aged buildings on
Either side of its narrow run.
I heard the bang of hammers,
The screech of sanders,
And the slap of bags of trash
As the city was noisily rebuilt,
Remade into something new,
Something unfamiliar to me,
Unrecognizable.

And then, as I rushed by,
Amid the blare and howling
Of the workers, of machines,
I heard a scrap of a sound,
Yes, a familiar sound,
Only a few straining notes perhaps,
Of a song I knew, an old song,
A song we once danced to,
Wildly, like a carousel at full speed,
Pressed together so that our
Faces were hot and our
Kisses concealed from eyes.

How much I missed that dance!
How much I missed the feel
Of skin touching skin,
And tongues tasting wine.
How much I missed the music
That now seemed to only
Linger briefly in the air
To be quickly overtaken
By the bangs and scratches
And screams of this new city.

Perhaps I did not hear the notes of the song.
Maybe I did not smell the trace of a flower.
Unlikely that I saw the face of a woman
Whom I once knew and adored and admired.
They were all ghosts to me now, here in this
New and unfamiliar city, that had the same
Outline of a face that I once knew so well,
But whose features, colors, scents and songs
Were locked in the past.

I had become one of those hateful people
Who doesn't know when to leave the party,
The kind of people we used to mock,
Who whined for the songs of their youth,
The old dances that nobody danced anymore,
Tastes of dishes whose recipes were lost.

Yes, this city was not the city I once knew.
Its swelling, passionate music had changed.
The faces on the avenue looked different,
Wore new and modern expressions.
And in the springtime, the park's
Frozen green would thaw and yield
Flowers of new colors and scents,
That would be picked by new lovers,
With new and radical ideas.

Leaving the narrow alley, I made my
Way back to the broad avenue,
And walked for many miles in the cold
January air as somewhere, the sun
Began to set, though all I saw
Was a subtle draining of light.
I kept walking up and down that
Aorta pulsing with life again,
And there, I passed a new cafe
Where people gathered to laugh
And drink and chatter and kiss.
Instead of walking on with no
Destination, I stepped
Toward its glow,
To grasp a glass full of new flavors,
To hear unfamiliar conversations
About new ideas and people,
To breathe deeply new scents
And to fill my lungs once again
With the spirit of life.

My city was not dead.
It was merely renewed.
My world was not gone.
It had merely transformed.
I was not buried.
I had been released.