Читать книгу Purity of Absence - Dave Margoshes - Страница 15

Mullin’s

If Mullin’s Hardware is really

the centre of the city

as the old-timers say, forget

the maps, the city plan,

then what of the Centre

of the Arts, Queensbury Downs,

what about Market Square?

They’re deserted tonight, empty

as the shells of gypsy moths, their

eyes alight with visions of the city

trembling in their wake, a naked

city, its bum bare as the day

it was born.

Tonight, the city’s pulse runs

ragged along 13th, a red current

of light leading—where else?—but

to Mullin’s, not just the centre

of the city but the universe,

to hell with the maps

and compasses, to Mullin’s,

where a woman in a red bandanna

is dancing alone in the shadow

of the cathedral, its hands thrown up

in joy, her eyes filled with light

reflected from the sputtering streetlamp,

her feet just barely touching

the ground. You and I

are getting to know each other

in ways they haven’t dreamed of

at the track or the Superstore,

in ways explained for a dime

in the hardware, third aisle

at the end.