Idaho Avenue
Now is before dusk. Allow the pale sandy sun to reflect off of the passenger side glass. Make the sun go down slow tonight. You cannot slow the sun. The sun is already low and grazes the high fronds of twin palms. Their finely serrated edges are colourless against the mauve haze. Look at the slender spine of each wisp of each frond. The spines are cropped by the frame of the passenger door. Turn right. Lean to the left. She leans, slumps to her left, and the sun grazes her hair which is sweaty. The lurches of movement of this car impel you to the left. Look back over the headrest where the gathering firmament surrounds you. The light is fully upon the sky’s dome yet falls about amongst the landscape. Make the light less sloppy. You close your eyes dumbly. The sun refracts through the moist air afloat on this eve and the city all about is luminous. Look under the cars you are passing slowly. The pavement is speckled with sunlight even in the shades of dusk. The pavement plains sprawl out from every chassis with uniformity. The pavement all gathers the same light. She looks of late afternoon stupor. Look out the window, past your reflection. The sun is slowly going down. Make the light from the pavement, the stucco, the windshields, the fronds, the flickers above hidden swimming pools leap into the clouds. The sun lowers to a tangential alignment with the city; its rays show infinitely past the flatness. Find yourself in colourless oversight. You are overlooked. You cannot receive the rays of the sun at dusk. The rays of the sun are reserved for the final gasp of the sky. You are moving straight down the narrow road in the passenger side of a vehicle. She leans to her right with her face against the passenger window. Her eyes loll. Make the sun below the crenelation of palm fronds, high apartment walls, streetlights against inverting glow. The profiles of the city grow soft and dull. Look at her silhouette with the sun setting through the back windshield and her frazzled hair. The dark walls of lone buildings against the sky rise up in the background. The transfer of twilight to their windows fills the terrestrial scape with receding blocks of colour. Find yourself dim in the pastel glows of the street’s lights. You are longing emptily for an interior. The warmth of the pastel glows before you as shades are drawn, apartment homes eclipsed. Memorize the patterns afire in the window lights. In the lowness of night you find yourself in shadow, isolated, and dim. Make your eyes rise to the end of the narrow car-lined street where two palm trees are snuffed out by night.