Virgil and I Contemplate Grey

Virgil and I along Boulevard of the Allies
Monongahela rolls, South Side below.
city clear through bare trees,
                 through trees that dropped color.
He mumbles, “Christ, its grey.”
I return, “It’ll be grey until April, no sense fighting it.
                  At least it’s a good sky for creativity, like the big sky
                  of the west, you paint your reality here.”

“It’s a good sky for drinking.” he says.

We both agree it’s a good sky for beards.

We have, since lunch, been pushing
small talk with greater implications.
We are travelling the wrong way, I haven’t questioned.
When a man feels like driving you let him,
he’s got something to work out in his head.
In this world, isolation is hard to find.

We cross the backside of Oakland,
through Schenley Park
talk meanders to barrooms past,
to his engagement freshly imploded,
about the way life changes
imperceptible, drastic.

Our beginnings never where we conceive them,
endings never where we thought they’d be.
Time becomes a tidal pool
lost to our ocean steps
while we look for questions the universe asks.
while we are look for truths that untie us.

The rich people’s houses fade.
Negley, Graham, Penn,
turns become meaningless.
We watch Sundays whisper
days disappear too quickly.