~ 35 ~
Deeper in this part of town, the buildings smile back with harelips and gap-tooth grins, vanity left to fallen doric columns, blacked marble and cracked plaster niches. The brass address plates have faded to gangrene lime and lace-patterned arches crumble apart with slightest fingertips— over time everything will be bordered up, one by— In this part of town, teenage boys call out in falsettos: Hey, Queenie! drawing out the phrase, words directed at anyone other than themselves, the thick blood-bonding bridged between themselves. Even their tattoos mirror each to each in their raw housings of skin. iii It is ironic, this situation: sometimes after dusk when the blue lights appear in my neighbors’ windows, their televisions tuned to late-night reruns, I wander cross town into the bordering woods, Creve Couer Park, slipping like Dante into the forest of his personal Hell, slipping among dark scented trees, figures with wild, open gestures. At this hour the only sounds are small-voiced owls calling out suddenly, or stray dogs on the prowl— At this hour, I can come across men kneeling into the essence of themselves, their bodies unaware of anything other but the temporary now. The forsaken act. Sometimes, if you lean closely enough, you can smell the whiskey on their lips,