Third Avenue in sunlight. Nature's error. <br />Already the bars are filled and John is there. <br />Beneath a plentiful lady over the mirror <br />He tilts his glass in the mild mahogany air. <br />I think of him when he first got out of college, <br />Serious, thin, unlikely to succeed; <br />For several months he hung around the Village, <br />Boldly T-shirtet, unfettered but unfreed. <br /> <br />Now he confides to a stranger, "I was first scout, <br />And kept my glimmers peeled till after dark. <br />Our outfit had as its sign a bloody knout, <br />We met behind the museum in Central Park. <br /> <br />Of course, we were kids." But still those savages, <br />War-painted, a flap of leather at the loins, <br />File silently against him. Hostages <br />Are never taken. One summer, in Des Moines, <br /> <br />They entered his hotel room, tomahawks <br />Flashing like barracuda. He tried to pray. <br />Three years of treatment. Occasionally he talks <br />About how he almost didn't get away. <br /> <br />Daily the prowling sunlight whets its knife <br />Along the sidewalk. We almost never meet. <br />In the Rembrandt dark he lifts his amber life. <br />My bar is somewhat further down the street.<br /><br />Anthony Evan Hecht<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/third-avenue-in-sunlight/
