Saving
Hackensack, New Jersey
by Frank Matagrano |
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For the last decade, I've done my best thinking surrounded by ice. Depending on the season, I have to fly a thousand miles north of this city to find a little snow so I can sit for an hour and think of skin, how it cracks in the cold, how it breaks under pressure, how it bleeds. When I return I stand on a roof top and count street lights until I am full of silence. There's always a cat screaming for milk; I hear everything, I have to live with this even if a red cape isn't draped over my shoulders. I'm holding a flower for dear life, I don't know what kind, I should know better than to mix affection with duty. Forgive me, Lois, for my white shirt and stutter, for the square-rimmed specs, for making you wait by the hot dog vendor. I am a liar, I'm dying to talk, I have a hundred stories - it's hard to believe any of them - don't even get me started on Hackensack; God knows what would've surfaced if its iron lung was ripped open by explosives: a stained handkerchief, a partial denture, a coffee pot, a bowl without sugar, a limp wing, a cracked piece of china, one sock, one shoe, a scorched mattress. There would've been a little truth - for me at least - a little light - that's one religion's word for it - a little rest from all of this jumping. I'm thinking about what it's like to walk down Fifth Avenue - any street, really - with a crutch, my balance ruined by my own sweet failure. |
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