Sestina in Blue

A sestina

Now. There's this woman wailing up on the wall

and Fat Joe's strumming down on the corner.

Music smooth as whiskey, and twice as cold.

It's been years since I've been in this city.

I haven't forgotten a single stone.

My old, sweet home, comfortable as a cell.

 

Then. Siting with a lead belly, in a cell

every day, picking paint from the wall.

Photos from back home covering the stone.

There's Sully from the diner on the corner.

Mac in another - in background, the city.

Pictures in black and white - so old, so cold.

 

Now. Walking, just walking, not feeling the cold.

Waking muscles put to sleep in that cell.

Find myself in the half-asleep city,

drawn to that wailing, drawn to the wall.

All the walking can't escape that corner,

can't wash away the old blood off that stone.

 

Then. The kid I hit, his head against that stone.

He lay there, bloody, fingers turning cold.

The cops, not looking, around the corner.

Whispers, urges, louder - Run. Or a cell.

Dropping everything, jumping the wall.

Where to go, where to run, in my city?

 

Now. It's different, and yet the same, this city.

On Queen Street, my name is still in the stone

where I scratched it, below the mural wall.

Out ain't been easy. Nightmare sweat so cold.

Forget those stiff-dicked daydreams from my cell -

looking for a woman on the corner.

 

Then. The day's paper, my face in the top corner.

Ran for twelve days, caught leaving the city.

Jury took two days. Put me in a cell.

His mama sent a picture of his headstone.

Put that photo up, too. Guys called me cold.

But I had thirty years to stare at that wall.

 

Now. Truth is, time in that cell has left me cold.

Judge says I've turned a corner, his eyes stone.

This ain't my city. And a wall's just a wall.