Lost and lost again, where glutted aisles of traffic surge, then genuflect at each red light, the dirge of revved engines like thuribles of exhaust. All must crawl in fitful supplication. We expect bad martyrdoms.
Cars career with zealots whose curses mean to lead somewhere, heedless of speed or approximation.
Scooters bow down to the taxi, taxis bow down to trucks, and trucks acquiesce to lines ordained by the urban axis, the god of our new testament. We give ourselves up to the waste like a sacrifice in a smog of burnt fuel, thick and votive. I listen to the rain, a monotone of trickles, taps, and spatters on stone. I envy the sound, expected only to stammer broken sea-chanteys like a weepy drinker, as some days I am desperate to be nameless, unhuman and beautiful. The names, the studied sounds, the prayers you scribbled out hang in the weather now, as the glow of a streetlight makes shadows bow where pine trees jig in the thunderstorm, as if the ghosts of what you felt had form.