by LJ Frank

I climbed the stairs from the subway toward my destination on the street above while noting the inventive poetry scribbled on the walls;

Walking down the street the smell of garbage floated in waves from a brick paved alley and a modern nomad reached into a large metal container to replenish his diet;

A few steps more and I relished the fragrance of a flower shop followed by the morning schedule of a bakery – inhaling the aroma of fresh baked bread and smiling at a long-eared dog waiting at the door;

And a limping bespectacled middle-aged man, adorned with the latest in clothes from goodwill and wearing an etched vertical line on his left cheek, his thin lips spreading somewhere between a smile and a frown, was having a conversation with himself;

A couple nearby emerged from a shiny luxury sedan, a night on the town with money dripping from their hands, there lifestyle designed to nourish their expensive emotions and enjoy the scenic cityscape while sending digital imagess of their pleasures to others they sought to impress;

A child with palsy and a sense of wonder in her eyes awkwardly held the hand of an older woman whose grey eyes starred in the distance, perhaps to avoid the looks from others, attitude wavers at the place entrapped between what is and what might have been, equality is a ruse the woman knew in her heart;

Climbing the steps to the art museum, donations were sought at the door as a school bus pulled in front and a newsletter suggested the need to privatize, as lobbyists sought to monetize the market for security of a free society rather than to ponder the value of a misplaced soul; 

I proceeded to walk through the galleries and noticed an oversized canvas of a city, leading against a wall, a reality through a crowded abstract from an artist who sought the vitality of life captured in the ambiguous moment and knew this is what was – choices we make or made for us.