Young Girl, and Death

I balanced on my tall stool in the crowded
Mahogany light of Astor Bar, squinting
At Carlo di Braccsco's Annunciation
With Saints. Brian, smiling and half-silhouetted
Before a bright glow of backlit bottles,

My friend and coconspirator - a cheerful variation of
Manet's Bar delle Folies-Bergères - bounced
Over to take my empty glass and glanced
Down, "what's that?" He spun the book around
And flipped the pages briskly, as if refreshed,

"Now that's good," tapping his paint-cuticled
Fingernail down on Hans Baldun Grien's

The Knight, The Young Girl, and Death. "Yes, " I answered,
The picture inverted from my view as
If reflected in water, with the too-blue

Sky poured down to the bottom. I told him,
"That's what the sky used to look like, when we
Sat out drinking beers in front of your old
Gallery," Blue, down on Lafayette Street,
Watching the clouds break up in the early

Evening behind the World Trade Center,
Watching the models float out and away
From the agency next door, as if we weren't there,
The pigeons wafting in squadrons from dumpsters
To disappear over rooftops; at the end of

The block, the giant Absolut Vodka billboard
Smeared itself up five stories above the Corner Deli,
Where junkies dozed out in the late sunlight
Of Petrocino Square. I spun the book back
Around, lit a cigarette, sipped at the free

Gin and tonic he fixed for me. We both
Knew that no sky ever actually looked
Like Grien's, that it just couldn't really
Ever have been so blue, but, as ever,
Then as before, we were too alive to care.
 

E. A. Hilbert
Long Island City, NY, USA