Philadelphia+Fog



Philadelphia Fog

There would be no more cluttered life, or upset geometry. Now the apartment windows were sockets, drained and hollow.

There would be no more sketches of the Union League, under the desk, on the floor, in various stages. No more photography pinned and drying indoors on clotheslines. No more restaurant blueprint for hotel management, real or otherwise.

There would be no more archway, or gallery, no more lookout rock, or boathouse, or ninth floor vantage, the one with the presidential surname.

What did you think when you shut off the lights and stood in the doorway? That there would be no more leaky roof? No more exposed pipe or cause of draft? Did you think, Now there is an increase in acoustics?

(You knew there would be no more listening across the hall.)

Sometimes I think you thought time would hold its breath, and you didn't guard the evening.

And now there would be no more stairwell. No more cracked street. No more action calling from the east, to follow, to get carried away.

Now all of it was spent.

I thought of a poltergeist, one we invited a long time ago, and gave a name, who would grow tame, and bored, and lonely, when he knew there would be no more havoc.

Seth Long