He wanted to pull out the pain
with a syringe, as if it were
black jelly that had accumulated
underneath his skin. This was
how morning welcomed him.
***
On Saturday nights, he was
the kind of man who went around town
painting murals with a can. They
were gorgeous, especially when city
employees melted them with hose-water.
***
In America you can find dollar bills
stuck deep in the cracks between
sidewalks; you can find people stuck
deep in the cracks between
buildings too.
***
You can also find people inside
said buildings, inside beds,
inside…
***
One
and only one
night, the painter was approached
by a hairy young man with combat
boots who claimed to have fought in
Vietnam. The veteran put a grimy
paw on the painter’s shoulder and
asked if he knew why airplanes
had so many windows.
***
The painter didn’t
know, neither
of them had flown
before.
***
The veteran slurred with distinction that
before windows were on planes,
they were closed-off
plastic flying tubes. But,
one day every passenger on
every plane
wanted to know what it felt
like to fly (wouldn’t you
like to know how to fly?),
so they clawed holes through
the hotel-colored plastic with
their fingernails and were
pulled into the air as if
by a clouded syringe.
***
The painter had nodded in
disagreement but the veteran
had already begun to walk
away to whatever it is
people call a home
these days.
***
He followed.
Two men who had never
flown before,
shifting under
concrete shadows.
***
The veteran’s underpass
slurred with cargo trucks and
families-of-four
(plus a dog named Rover)
passing quickly by
on their high road.
***
As he slept,
the painter canned a
mural of reds and blues on the side of
his public underpass
home. He wondered if
the veteran would melt
away under hose or
rain water too.
***
…or by morning, be pulled
away from all this into the
cloudy sky, as if by
syringe.
Jon Ritter is a self-taught 18-year-old wannabe artist living outside of Portland, OR. He is a bit of a closet poet/writer who likes loud music, sushi, and night time in the city. He is always looking to meet new people, readers, and writers.
“In America you can find dollar bills
stuck deep in the cracks between
sidewalks; you can find people stuck
deep in the cracks between
buildings too.”
Yes, brilliant! Especially in the building-cracks of downtown Portland (and Seattle).