Francesco Levato
 

Halogen drift
 
 
 
 
 

Dusted with the grit of halogen light a figure lingers, still as the day's residue accreted on the elevated platform, his presence merged with the concrete decay, scattered cigarette butts, and coffee-stained headlines, a shadow fixed against the blur of silver, the electric sparking where wheel meets rail, train windows like celluloid flickering, still lives framed in stroboscopic flashes, between cars, between the passing of one night to the next faces change, conversations, but the after-image remains, never quite fading. Bridging street and sky metal stairs echo his footsteps, beneath the tracks, the lattice of riveted bones, a mass of rags huddles against a concrete piling, the rise and fall of breath their only distinction from the collected garbage. Past an empty parking lot, its space reserved for the luxury of vehicles, a wall of televisions vie for recognition, affirmation, their screens flash in a frenzy of enticement, drink Coke, buy another SUV, ask your doctor about the latest miracle, one pill the answer to anxiety, depression, a limp dick. Reflected in the phosphorescent glow his apparition drifts past the storefront window, blank, indifferent to the incessant chatter, the desperation to keep from dissolving  into the static separating channels.

First published in Letter eX (Chicago Poetry)

  (c)Levato 2004