A Walk Through Kashiwa,
January 3rd 2000
For Sally Crawford
I feel the money like cold air
at the edges of your London lake,
or the smoke you find in a late night
pub, it is in their bags, in their clothes,
in their words, it is everywhere,
I walk along the packed shopping malls,
waiting for a gap, and I suppose these
platform shoed pubescents might
in their way correspond to your geese
as they unsteadily make their way
along ice-like department store floors,
and leaning against the colored tiled
walls, like drunks after last orders,
plastic Christmas trees, and boxes
of brand new merchandise are piled
up ready in the basements like Spring
under the snow of Winter, and an old
woman enters a fastfood place, spending
more than usual looking for change, and
I feel for her,as one does for a bird
caught out in the cold, maybe a sparrow,
and the artificial coalesces with the natural
in my mind, I want nature, so much, to be here
and I sit next to a salaryman while
groups of families pore through their spoils,
this bargain, this brand name scarf, this
perfume, this necklace, this and this,
and they are happy souls, happy with life,
from the speakers pours out music
that chills the body like an early morning
walk, the white noise of a London lake
in winter, that is, if I close my eyes,
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