Who would seek permanence
seeks an illusion;
may as well go to a crystal baller
in her store-front side-show.
All Done up in faux-gypsy drag,
she is damnably seductive.
One might even– but no,
there’s that waft of patchouli;
cheaper, one might guess,
than the cost of a bath.
And what is that other smell?
Overcooked cabbage,
emanating from the apartment
behind? Sweat and beans,
and cheap beer and cheese,
all of them other cruciferous
enhancers in dancing motes
of dust playing in the oblique
sunlight which filters through the
filthy blinds, splays across the
worn linoleum and seem so real
as if Time stands frozen, never to
be forgotten or misremembered.
Then, even she could’ve told you that.
poetastrophy 