Elena does her anatomically correct yoga routine
with her delicate, private crotch
and sexual tangle extended like exclusive currency
for gallery crowd strolling,
now concentrating on Elena's uncrossed legs;
I can easily see
but not feel the answer;
coins begin to assemble in the cigar box;
down the alley there's fifteen bucks on the ground
sprouting like a flower in the dust and leaking fog
outside the county dental office,
partially folded and twisting in wind,
I palm it neatly and put it away
just as I realize someone's watching,
but I walk and look down, half a block away from real life.
The hookers never gather for long:
two or three per block, stepping around corners
and waiting for business to look them up;
Raven used to come and talk to me sometimes,
she was younger than most, sad as any,
and wouldn't say anything real,
but stand still and talk,
so she came upstairs and we looked out the window;
we could see other girls operating
like a movie we wouldn't have paid to see
but were somehow part of, the customers
auditioning, the whole thing very subtle,
girls wearing jeans, not much to see
pretending they had thoughts, places to go;
toward F Street, up the grade past the old Chinese camp
wincing in the quick glare off windows,
revolving lights at a traffic stop a block away;
you can always spot the dried expressions
as they seek the eyes--they seem to be swimming through bleak
currents of fog and pulp mill smoke.
