from Something Solid: Aughts Philly: Incarnadine

First Friday, Olde City, autumn: I watched Abby
seduce a curator in the Artists House Gallery, clawed
my way past buskers & vendors, up again to Logan
Square; up 21st Street, over to the Franklin Institute,
out onto the Parkway, where a slight tilt will show
you the Art Museum; back over & around, & wandered
into my flat. The soft October warmth told me what
I needed to hear, for a hot minute: eternity, ecstasy,
elevation, riding waves on an ocean of buildings.
A general recession of waves was latent, built into us,
destined to pinch some of us to death, but in the end,
it didn't matter— Abby's striped, clinging gown that
night, leaning towards maroon & plain red, marked my
brain as permanently made incarnadine, for her & us—