The City

I dream of the city. The lights,

tall buildings, the glamour. I

don’t dream of being a rich

and successful pioneer but

being able to wake up and

hear her distant cadence. I

dream of screeching brakes

and stop signs. The hum of

neon lights, the dressing-down

of a late busboy. I hear you

leaving a bar. I hear you

thumbing your pockets for a

key and finding nothing but

wrong change. I hear you

vomiting in an alleyway,

swearing at the taxi. I hear

you bark at the moon, through

the rain soaked, blood-drenched

streets of capitalism.

I dream of the city. The fast-

paced, cash-laced patchwork

of train-lines and traffic fines. I

see the gleam of main streets,

without missing their hidden

flaws. I feel the breath of

those above bearing down,

I see Wordsworth’s abbey and

Wollstonecraft’s rocks. They

are in the avenues and side-

walks of the city that I love. I

hear dialect, neglect and

despair in her veins and

thoroughfares. I hear her heart

beat as a distant murmur.