5054. IN NO MAN'S LAND

IN NO MAN'S LAND

Things are slow in this battle of wits. The red wine

is on the table, the bottle now again uncorked. We

are drinking the hours away. There aren't enough hours

to contain the day : 57th Street calls me like another

flask, but I hear from no one at all, and walk alone.

Now. Staggering only a bit, sideways. Into a wall I

remember from another time. Two construction guys 

are eating a lunch  -  plastic trays and paper bags, with

a cigarette each, them, not the bags, and they just watch.

Them, not the bags. I saunter by, thinking again of you

and where I left you sitting. I think I can remember the

getting back after the leaving is done. Who knows?

-

There's yet another food cart on the corner; it's lunchtime

and all these fools must eat again  -  small-talk and chirping

from the Paki guy sloshing his rice and lamb or something

onto trays, water and soda, forks and napkins  -  every

American invention known to street-eating henchmen of

the broad daylight. I see them all double, which only

makes it worse; now. Worse. Now. My intentions

were good, were noble, yes, yet now they've fallen 

away. Ah, things are slow in this battle of wits.