Downtown Breeze
- Chris Stroffolino

There is, I think, a writhing volition in every
Underwriter whose hobby is to be famous
In walking in the sunset that begins around
Lunchhour on Wall Street but not on the ferries
That haven’t totally banished the idea of siesta
from the headset of the country where higher
education is a dead end or dead language and
we’re only elitists when we lapse and fit
the square peg assigned us a little too perfectly
To be able to breathe and learn nothing in particular
But the futility of facts on the resume of memory
Being erased by spontaneity on the way to heaven
Or at least formalism in the boat that’s cheap enough
To ride in all day providing you’re living
Off someone else’s interest which is just
a me-decade way of preaching salvation as fun
rather than as necessary to avoid damnation
which is just another way of reminding us
that we feel lousy when we think we love ourselves
more than others unless we’re high (on sacrificial smack)
and all conscience is a censor like pain itself
allowed not in the plane or boat from which you
can see the sun without the sunset it’s important
to remember surrounding you when you do
the Wall Street Shuffle or when there’s no
difference between flirting with people
and letting them flirt with you.