EAST OF THIRD

              (After Corot’s Hagar in the Wilderness)

 

Ish drives a cab down Eldridge Street

and mutters under his breath as he passes the temple.

He speaks to no one as they enter

and exit his taxi.

After work, he walks Hester and Orchard Street

searches for half smoked cigarette butts

in gutters.

He smells of the city’s incense:

bus fumes, car diesel, smoke.

Ishmael is the city incandescent.

He scratches his face, beard,

flakes of dead skin

litter his shirt.

 

When the sun starts its descent

he begins the long walk east and north

up to El Barrio,

if he’s got money he takes the 3rd Avenue bus,

passes Carnegie Hill,

with its bakeries and shops,

croissants, gold baguettes, bagels.

When the weather’s good, like today,

warm, but cool enough not to smell

the city’s summer stench,

he dreams along the East River

of the father he never had.

He’s thirsty,

thirsty for a life not

prescribed,

his mouth, dry

for light,

for his hapless mother.

He knows jealousy,

that even Corot’s brush of

innocence will not help.

                                                                                                                                       

God will listen,

but will his brother?

 

His body moves through the city’s decades:

the sound of others underfoot,

sidewalks beaten hungry.

Italian, Irish whiskey,

gefilte fish,

Puerto Rican pork and beans,

and Chinese halal.

He climbs the hill

crosses over to 2nd Avenue

stops at the Kitchen for

Moroccan Chorba,

the saffron turns his potatoes and turnips,

golden; the bowl warms him ancient.

He sets out for his mother.

 

Each block east, the food

begins to disappear

no flower carts,

of roses, orange day lilies, baby’s-breath.

Everyone is wheezing,

an ache in the chest,

the smell of old fires

burns in his lungs,

storefronts for the addicted,

the sick,

a wasteland of abandoned buildings.

 

He finds his mother,

hustling on 125th Street.

Her diabetic feet, yellowed, calloused

too swollen for shoes,

she’s rolling dice with the old men,

lucky seven she prays,

gives him cash if she makes any.

God will provide she tells him,

I’m feeling lucky tonight.

 

They head up the hill, together.

The wafered sun

slips beneath the horizon

and scattered molecules of light

in the ethered night

let the tired day go.

Sulfuric afterglow

upon their heads.

It’s the blue hour,

even in this city.