Untethered
3am. The insistent brush
of my coat against my bare thigh,
the warm humid air as I walk as confidently
as if I knew where I were going
in this freewheeling city.
3am is full of possibility, anything could happen;
lights are lit, night is the perfect backdrop.
Nothing interesting ever happens at the prosaic hour of eleven in the morning.
After gin, your hands forget how to play the piano.
This is something I know from the bar with the Steinway.
You can heroically intervene in dubious situations;
or talk for hours to twitching waiters
on Monday nights, when you are the only person there
in the endless small hours;
dance ballet down the street.
In the end, what you do is not the point.
The point is this:
this freedom, this potential, the city laid bare and open before you,
everything to be taken, including you;
the terror and calm in the pit of the stomach as you gently do something huge and irrevocable,
and how swift and easy it is to disappear.
