City People

Those of us who have lived never
seeing the sky for weeks and months
on end have a mythology of sky-
scrapers. We try to carve out new
names for ourselves, to envision
new myths, but the city will always be
the main component of our blood.
We mark milestones in our histories
by intersections of streets. "My mother
lived on that corner over there for
a while when I was ten. Above
the pharmacy, you know, across from
Deville's?" Remember? we ask
ourselves. Remember the eggs we
threw and the words we screamed
out those windows? Remember how
nothing's changed since then? Not the look of
the streets, not the delusions and fancy
clothes, not the half-distant sickness
that comes from only half-sensing
our own insides. Nothing has changed.
The myths we were given are still
concrete and cold. We have
breathed in and swallowed down
the brownstones and projects and
subways. What good does it do us
now? We are still the city. We are
the rentals and impermanence. We are
the lack of permeable surfaces and
we really have nothing.

(1997)