44 CARNATIONS
I counted 44 carnations on 24th Street along
the front of someone's store. The light was all
brand new and the day hadn't even really
started yet : tall buildings massed in the looming
distance, as if trying to overhear a word. Lights
changed and taxis dove for cover. Something
like the Flower District was limping along; all
those sagging storefronts still old and decrepit.
No one had yet fixed up a thing, as if the
rest of the city - all that new glass and steel -
didn't really exist at all. A man was on the sidewalk,
his prayer rug on the ground, and he was actually
bending to the east, as some form of sun came up.
The solar-powered worship of carnations and men,
it was, that made me realize right then - and stop
dead in my tracks - that I was living in a moment
of time unprepared for by me. I never thought this
would be. I still live in a court of milkmen and
breadmen and doctors who came to one's house.
Maybe a simpler time, but one still there for me.
Too bad then - all this super-speed and overlap,
people playing notions off the ground. A million
ancient things beneath the sun, still leaking in
to color a day that's just begun. For me, I
shrugged and moved along, still
watching shadows on the wall.
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