Intersections

Venice Blvd, mid-city, Los Angeles

There are people upside-down in that giant armed creature, screaming wildly, faces stretched against gravity.  I sat at the light, two moons away, inside a cage of steel, staring at the carnival, set up in urban blight, a mirage of color and light and popcorn smells. People in cinder block houses step outside, into neon and thrill, into rooms of steel and arms that enclose and swing up and away into blackness, where fear and happiness meet for an instant. I might have stepped out and into it, climbed up and let go instead of squinting my eye against glass, holding it one outstretched arm away.

















If your Nerve, deny you -
Go above your Nerve -
He can lean against the Grave,
If he fear to swerve -


That's a steady posture -
Never any bend
Held of those Brass arms -
Best Giant made -


If your Soul seesaw -
Lift the Flesh door -
The Poltroon wants Oxygen -
Nothing more -


Emily Dickinson, c. 1861