Sliding to the First Day

It is summer, and the umbrella men are selling hotdogs. A good-looking priest enters Saint Pat's, gangly girls giggle, then make the sign of the cross. Thursday is All-You-Can-Eat pizza day, the joints will be too crowded, the slices rushed out, slapped down way to early or late. Office workers flock from the second floors of everywhere, huddle shoulder to shoulder, to spread rumors, then return to gaze at desktop computer games or TikTok – **** is a compensatory privilege of the under paid. The year hurries on, rats scurry behind neon facades. Downtown is slip-sliding, it used to be a place to get noticed, a gated area for outdoor passions. Modest ladies now hold the hem of their skirts down, and not because of any up-lifting wind. Dope is in the air, thieves hustle to get their share. Tourists meander dazed, as the stark exposure of the city tramples over them. Winter bites its chill tongue. Come December’s last glittering moments, that glass ball will hang by the thinnest of threads. ~~~~~~~~~~~ (new edit)