swirl of anonymity

because i am vain on occasion

(I write better than I photograph. It's untitled - something along the lines of "from the private journals of the lost businessman"...it's a first draft - Hope is a real town in Jersey)

Hope is a town full of gaps.
I am alien amongst its blank space. The sight of what seems to be a barn
leaves me breathless. I squint my eyes.

Hope is a town full of open fields. Last May,
my research proved them obsolete. I'll lose my job if news gets to Congress. Meantime,
I philosophise a cow's cry. Does it know that its moans are misprinted?

Hope is a town without smokestacks. Their cancer does not
bark its breath into night. I can't even hear
their coughs echoing. I rush to find a phone booth and tell my mother.

Around midnight, I am alarmed to see
a gray-bearded man in pajamas stand
on his stoop, open-mouthed with his head tilted back. I approach him with caution.

“Sir?” I impart. “Excuse me, sir? Is everything OK?”
His gray eyes are glossy. Their shine unsettles me. He merely lifts his hand to the level of his chest
and points upwards. Lost, I look.

It is black, I tell you. The sky. It is black. It is really black. I cannot describe.
There are stars. Littering. I cannot live to count.
“Deja vu” – beside me, the poor, crazy man murmurs. I frown at the sound of his senility.

posted by swirl of anonymity @ 3:57 AM