not a cloud in the sky outside my window

I am not the source of the broken branches, the slants of light across the square. I hunger for the color of bricks piled just so and your blue figure moving through shadow and light (shadow and light and light and light).

Where did all this traffic come from and who are these messengers in our midst? Felt the distant push of youth last night, again, the whiteless yearning of the crow at midnight, the harried race of tiny feet among the high buds of springtime, the tension of gray wires against the skyline.

I avoided the request as best I could, hoped eagerly for better sources, better handoffs from him (yes, him) to me (and thee). Here in my enclave of buildings I can forget them, the sodium pools, the phosphoric highways at the fringe of the City. Here there is a hint of pleasure at every stoplight, and the memory of his words (and hers!) fades into a yellowed memory, recedes into the middle distance.

I hide here, surrounded by glass and stone, right where I belong. O steel! O hiding place away from the open borderlands. O city—

But roads and rivers run cruelly on, run right out of the city (my City, still) and we wind up right back at the wide open plain, back at the flatlands and floodplains, the bitter airports and the deep toll of the planes, the chorus of all that thrusting.

Here in the morning I am no further—these are the same roads, after all—I am no further than had I simply stood there in the dark and taken the offer, assented to the mad behest. Stand right out there in the middle of the road, stand there in the shadow of the storage shells, the oil drums—either way, he'll know I've consented and I'll take this task demurely, nodding and full of smiles.

So we are back in the dark, heads nodding at the Rust Man, agreed to tear down the Market and fling its bones into the sky, unremarked by the great planes, even by the starlings, the finches. His hand is warm and dry and I imagine momentarily—

the orange decay of all the
industry
I've loved so long
bitter fruits and failed sunrise, or the hunger of young lovers at dawn
sound of locusts, murmur of what? wings? arrows newly feathered?
a small boy, broken open, a bag of grain or meal
the space between smaller and smaller towns until the rails are all that's left
his small eyes framed in black glasses,
his arms liver-spotted, memory of grandchildren and the arc of telegraph signals
some remnant of
a woman's voice in a cool morning kitchen

—but I take the money anyway. She tensed briefly as it changed hands, her figure dissolved in the shadows of the building. Then took my hand, our fingers meshed like so many threads. My head bent, her light whisper at my throat—
the memory of locusts, liver spots, telegraph
—(shake of my head) her light whisper at my throat, "It's all right all right all"

I longed for yesterday amid the cool clean light and the glass buildings. But kept the money, pointed our joined figure toward the City, once more.