THE OWL OF WOODRUFF BY ZAC DUNN The air is escaping through the vent So outside into the snow I went Looking for the old cold little boy who was once so brutally annoyed Gazing in the vacuum expanding endlessly Into sublime silence He would speak of another place Far away that was the opposite of where we stood A place of lights and humans and filth and crime A place of vice and excess of choices expanded to extensions Spelled out neon and steel He spoke of himself tragically Thrown all alone like a stone From his aging folks more surprised to see him than them Always hungry and ambitious As the snow falls and I crawl up the block to Sprinkle the salt so souls don’t slip I wonder about the cold night he told me that he disappeared Somewhere between the Deuce and Penn he said The inner aorta of the pulsing ugly thing That was bigger and badder, kinder and more sublime Bathed in the torrents of humans like The sun chasing the moon rising and falling But never recalling where they came from long enough to forget Where they were SANDY would lace his boots and put on a long woolen coat before putting The long string that contained his keys around his neck As he stepped out of the door He clutched a tiny hand-painted LEAD KNIGHT for luck As the flakes coated the granite and tar block leading down Woodruff an OWL somehow stopped long enough upon A bit of spalted ASH to behold a small person who seemed So all on his own that for a brief moment the snow and the COLD Made him utterly disappear And swallow him WHOLE FOLLOW FOR MORE WORK — IG: @UZIEGO | TUMBLR: @WTFCRAIGSLISTNYC No. 122
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