Crowded park dream

Strolling a city park at dusk amid adults waving flags. I absorb the gauntlet with the focus of their spectacle onstage behind me. I’m slapped and smacked by whipping fabric, then safely on the other side at an ornamental water fountain on a small lawn. I rinse my hands in the fountain, aware of people and birds. No interviewers with cameras ask how I was able to overcome the challenge. 

Onto sidewalks soiled and grimy, down darkened alleys. Dripping pipes and huddled itinerants. Postcards still find this place. The mayor holds a candle and greets me. I’m just making the rounds, he says. I trade my iPhone for his candle, which I struggle to keep aflame as we walk. The bridge is a marvel and we cross it, gaining a retinue of locals in our aligned pursuit to conquer land and water.

Outdoor museums by moonlight on the tongues of ghosts. Traffic exhaust in our clothes. The cemeteries in this city vary widely by style. Buried dead in the east salvage no rest from the highway noise. Out west everyone’s dead and nothing can be done. Only away from here can one sleep peacefully, as with all places.

Dogs run wild at night. The people wish they were dogs. Bats dart soundlessly about tree canopies, disappearing into the moon. Somewhere the dead regain form and slither atop fallen autumn leaves toward fates unknown.