the air as an invisibility draped with sounds

last night felt like the first night of the next phase. spring. rebirth. reinvention. rewhatever.

All Night Long

The First warm evening in spring—the evening
on which you no longer feel the air's
temperature and are only aware
of it as an invisibility draped
with sounds: laughter from open windows,
the idle of cars pausing at the curb,
abdominal wails presaging a cat
fight in some dark, disputed corner; draped
with smells: through a side door propped ajar fish
hitting hot oil, dust or mold from the pit
of a deserted construction site, the soil
in front gardens after rain, released
and crumbled from beneath by the numberless
green thumbs of spring's long reach up
out of the ground. A young man waits on the stoop
of a six-floor walkup with the posture
of someone who expects to wait
for a long time. What you imagine to be
his earthly possessions are beside him
in a shopping cart, along with a roll
of rubber foam, neatly tied. You imagine
he had come knowing there will be no bed,
only floor space in one of the apartments
above. You can't imagine more than this, so you
walk up the fading street to where the first
crocuses are out, each one a small, violet-shuttered
hesitation imbued with its own brevity,
knowing neither happiness nor grief.

by Anne Pierson Wiese