TACTICAL NEWSPAPERS IN A PUBLIC SPACE

I was reading the oversized newspaper,

the one about tactical urbanisms

for expanding megacities. Newsprint

was rubbing off on my hands, the wet

and fresh-smelling ink.

There were plants and flowers everywhere,

in tangled masses in the clay pots

in the narrow alleyways. One is opening:

Ah, there: let’s just observe it

for a moment. Cables bristling with tea-lights.

Small ceramic tumblers brimming with black tea —

all of these are breaking into rainbow-tinted fragments,

like the light rain, an icon from childhood

you once held close: a secret object

for no other reason than the fact that you have held it.

It is a mirrored dream. A cigarette smolders

in the abalone shell that doubles as an ashtray.

I see you’ve been reclining on the balcony

above the narrow street, shadowed by the branches of a carob

tree,

it’s seedpods rattling in the thick leaves just in front of you.

Reflective panels shine redirected sunlight

into the blue and yellow modular houses:

liquid forms and glass bricks, hanging potted plants

make cool alleyways where people have set

their birdcages out in a sudden and refreshing sun shower.

And in the evening you walked down to the water —

the islands were floating under the night sky,

under the fireworks. You stepped into a listing

boat and got a haircut. Blue lamps burned

outside the pleasure district.

(continues)