About a White City

Abstract

About a White City* Justin Phillip Reed (bio) The barren ground feelsthe dead pressedinto a long distractionof asphalt. You pile the lesspleasant bits of newseasily through all the sleepand line the story of years. It’s too long,turning andturning upon itself. A thick pain—what precisely happenedyears / days /hours ago. That blue night, cut with red. Heavily, you wait. The forced future is justmore fight all the time.So much dirt and laundry.Bloodsponged easily offthe day. It seemscalculatedly malevolent. [End Page 310] Terrors threaded by handsundo another daygray with use. A door slams. Someonegoes as far as the shop,and in the fullness of time,you empty a glass of whiskey. How many boys?Make a list, learntheir names, forget them.They were here, nowthey’re not. Ropetied to a tree and head in the muddy creek.What a long time it seemed,rising to the surface. Tomorrow will seem no more passing. [End Page 311] Is repetition boring?Quite a few things go nowhereand back. Another day,a friend calls. Another,a redder redthan blood gathers and sets on its edgethe mind. It rains again:a breakdown occurs, something like eatingthe pattern of many moodsnaked in winter. Time heals what? The rottingwill surely cement and leave youtoo much too often. [End Page 312] Streaking trails of violetlight, the wet streetreflects a rim of moon and bursts into tears.The snowbrushed gray-black with mud. The deep art of these days. The city rears up:white, white, lovely.Inside, every roommutates like a basic truth. They say there are thosewho have neverfelt terror. How fine. A couple passes,jogging. Fine. The world coasts by,unexpected, mysterious,or running, or simply lying. An old man at the storerattles with catarrh,is rough, caughtuntranslatable,subjective, an idlethought, a racket. Ordinary householdpain is a freight. A buspasses with its burdenof need. [End Page 313] What is that chatter? The matter of business:a rug underneath which is sweptthe living dirt. Go.Hasten. Tarry. Bluesteyes and bird tongues crashat the restless surface,chewing and spitting and andand all this without thought. The men are machines. The whiteengine assembles a sincerecrack in the silence.This churning sucks up the day.The violent muck is quite other. Crooked branches lift admissions to the horrors. [End Page 314] A month of dust. Youwant to cling to being,want to go before the snapand still press your face intothe life mask. What happens now wide and mindless impermanence A new shop is being built,an old one refurbished. A whiteinterior, changes in taste. But there is your face.You reluctantly open upand hang out. Visitorsmisunderstand silence for approval. You stirabstractions and generalities.The evening seems set. The truth is daily work. The past is suddenly ahead. Stand. It utters questions. [End Page 315] Justin Phillip Reed JUSTIN PHILLIP REED, a South Carolina native, is author of a chapbook, A History of Flamboyance (YesYes Books, 2016). His first full-length book of poetry, Indecency, is forthcoming from Coffee House Press in 2018. His poems and essays appear—or soon will—in Boston Review, Catapult, Columbia Poetry Review, Eleven Eleven, Kenyon Review, Obsidian, PEN American, RHINO, the Rumpus, Vinyl, and elsewhere. The Online Editor for Tusculum Review, he currently lives in St. Louis, where he is a Junior Writer-in-Residence at Washington University. Footnotes * after James Schuyler Copyright © 2016 Johns Hopkins University Press