An owl interrupts the night but the inebriated moon, forgetful of days spent in taxis, hours when time was measured by the kissing or irons against clothes, is forgiving. Two men laugh at a table of checkers, sip coffee smoke cigarettes and are respectful of the town imbecile who was has an injury at the factory to blame for his lonely condition of speaking of chopped bread, newspapers hung out to dry on clotheslines made of telephone wire. Young girls walk past the park perfuming the air behind them like bees while the young men are stoic statues, feigning the fixing of hair in the windows of empty shops. Energetic dogs lap at the city fountain. About me on the hills, lights rise like polite celestial cities.
Jazz music fills the streets from laughing bars.
The night landscape is beautiful, almost urbane. City guards slip by in colorful cars and think of the occurrence at the pizza restaurant, remembering young evenings when one was tested by the toss of a ball, the ability to speak to timid birds. The old woman who wipes graffiti off of mailboxes has received some good news. Her son, a soon to be father was accepted into the academy. She recalls evenings spent at tables, musicians who sang of the old days, and the photographs of lions done up in lace framed on tables smelling of cedar and ink.