Yes, I mean the side where I sleep. Or think I sleep. The sleep could be dream. The drift. The doors. The talk. Yes, the skin—not the same. And the signs like big confetti chunks not falling, grafted to rooftops and storefronts, telling this avenue walker with vowels coupled to consonants and not said the same about business they’ve got, or had got but lost. Yes, not the same. I can see it, you know, by the blanks behind windows. The padlocks. The chains. Yes, it was different, or I was.
There’s the tiny man. Still very old. His coat has not always been his. The shoulders come near to his elbows, cuffs rolled. He’s got a way of moving his feet. They stay in a V. One leg of it moving an inch. The other one then. Heels never seem quite parted. Usually I don’t so much see him move as hear his soles brush along. And his forearm always at a right angle. Straight out. A white cup like a cane feeling for something that gives.
And there’s Christina’s. She asks about my ears. Yes, the studs are fine. The lobes less sore. I will buy more. Next time. Then Luis, the bank guard. Why should he show me his wallet with his three-year old daughter? His wife? His son? They need. Do I know anyone with little girl things. Little shoes. Little coats. Little ribbons. Small socks.
Every third door is nailed shut. I watch my step. Why did they use plastic covers over sidewalk accesses to in-ground utilities? Usually missing. Ankle breakers. There’s the child selling Chicklets. The blond dog with red muscle exposed on her haunch. Two toes hanging loose. The empty white carriage. The despondent horse. Steam rising off chicken parts in a bowl near an unpaned window. The tiny man. No one stops me. I know the way. The side to walk. The best access to the sand. The powdery give. How the calves ache moving toward where the tide’s been. Bottle caps. Pelicans. Blue air. Hair ruffed by the rush of it. I will dream better signs tonight.
South, down the shore. Still August. Still light. The vendors have thinned. The pier is a right-angle arm reaching out. White caps feeling for something solid. They wrap around. They wash through. Tatter. What would one peso have mattered? A pair of small socks? I could be chewing gum. Or someone else could. The tracker that smoothes the beach has left wide tracks. Between them sandpipers have left V tracks in crisscrossing ways. Human prints show another has been here. After the tractor’s erasure. After the birds. Before the tide. I look back. Yes, I mean the side where I sleep. The conscious side closed. Nailed shut. A frozen confetti of signs.
No, I did not make a difference. Not today. Not in the design.
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