STONE MEN

by Nick Schupak

A small elevator. Only room for two. Three if you don’t mind

Pinning your face to another face.

Romance begins, often, at a distance. Light through space,

Love over time. Such are the romances of men and women.

But a small elevator sort of romance is chemical, immediate; paper in water.

In the city where the small elevators live

The stones that pave the streets are the stones that hold aloft the roofs

That pitch softly toward us, and we are walking on the stones and are

Made of the same stuff as

The streets, the roofs, one another.

The river is silent and keeps still like a good and happy child.

It plays quietly — purposefully being quiet — so we can pay attention to

Touch, to smell, to the streets and stones and roofs.

There are no large elevators here.

Even the small ones are only here because the world has commanded them.

Here, they are almost a nuisance.

They take us up and away from the

Streets and the upward gazes we cast upon the roofs.

We are not made of stars here.

In upstate New York I am made of stars, but here we are made of stones.

We are the streets and the time is took to put stone unto stone.

We are quiet and ageless beautiful creatures.•••