from the garden on the patio of the 17th floor, she's almost sure she can feel it - the city is alive.
its breath sings up, off the street, blows back her hair, fills her lungs.
cars pump through its veins, vibrating the railing, and her hands long and slender.
somewhere behind her the sun is going down, crawling up the cooling glass of the tower is the click and hum of some street musician. she peers down at him, watching the disinterested moving past, on.
later she's on the pavement, in movement, apart and a part of the great urban beast.
stopping and starting, beating the pathways and moving in sync with the strange physics of the street. she stands adrift of the crown fountain, in the descending dark, catching the kiss of its mist, like a vespers upon her face.
she stands there, like a rod, eyes closed amongst the maelstrom trying to feel, know the secrets she thinks are carried there in the fragile consistency of the monumental.
a stroll down michigan, others are pulling on light jackets and around her the cool off the lake clings to her like a companion. at the light at randolph a boy tells her she has beautiful eyes, she smiles because she knows it is true and leaves him there confused by the look, in the wake of her hair.
just a block north she sees something different, peering along the line of the river she sees lower wacker and realizes the city is not what she thought. growing out, off of its own bones- the city seeming lovely, is too a monster perverse. the heart is on the outside, its spine is a dead husk, and the colour and wonder is grown on its detritus, its decay. oh, there's a serenity to city lights, their looming consistency. but looking at their reflection in the chicago river, she found it all very jarring. all the towers, arias of steel and glass and cement, were undeniably absolute, resounding. but she thought then that they were not the representatives of the real city, not the secret that had propelled her eager exploration.
the wind was kicking up, and off to her right the dingy yellow noise of the bar, where her friends were waiting, wept. she knew then that the light broken and trapped in the black wake of the river was the real reflection of the city. cutting quietly through the city, bringing in and pulling out. she found it disconcerting, was alarmed and felt herself recoil from the waterline. she wondered how people managed to live in, with the presence of such a truth.
she bundled herself again the wind for the first time, and drug herself into the bar and the choral warmth of hellos and hugs. a few drinks, a few stories. a song, a dance, a hand at the waist. a distraction, a flutter. words at the balcony. as he left to get drinks she immediately forgot him, as she did all boys and in the night turned again to look on the city.
amidst the unsystematic movement, lights from the cars, the churn on the lakeshore- she could see the disk of the navy pier, the ferris wheel drawing her in. she found it instantly soothing. it illuminates. a pulse. turning at measured pace. looking on it she was able to sigh, and again believe that all was as it should be, and as it will be, forever and ever.
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