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Street Angel

by dominic calderon

Film still from Street Angel. A young woman with curly hair and a fur shawl pokes her head out a window smiling, opening the shutters to the side.

digression is violence
or so says another airline book about love.
you stared at your feet today
& felt the whistling wind of autumn brush
between your forehead & the rings of saturn.
the powerplant behind the alley shut down.
it seems all of us have become disinterested
in electricity this year. that janet gaynor movie
you like is back on— you can sit in the silence of it
all now. i’ve never seen it, not a second, but

if i’m remembering correctly (“if” here as a measurement)
there was a prostitute & a carnie, two of them, and something
to do with a heinz dilemma. i can imagine
they were madly in love, the moon & such,
but surely it was wrong. maybe his act grew tired?
(in my version of the film
                                      he is a ringmaster.)
elephants can sit still
for a long time & begging is a low mileage
act. or maybe the carnival went bankrupt?
and a man without an income may as well be
prematurely placed inside of his hearse.
it’s hard to remember & i know

so little of the present but i do know that
if i hear that Love song by the cure
i just might die tonight & i do know that
if i see another rich “communist” at a dive bar
i’m going to shatter his jaw and i do know that
if all we had left were these few minutes together
i’d just like to say—

digression is violence
or so says another airline book about love.
you stared at your feet today
& felt the whistling wind of autumn brush
between your forehead & the rings of saturn.
the powerplant behind the alley shut down.
it seems all of us have become disinterested
in electricity this year. that janet gaynor movie
you like is back on— you can sit in the silence of it
all now. i’ve never seen it, not a second, but

if i’m remembering correctly (“if” here as a measurement)
there was a prostitute & a carnie, two of them, and something
to do with a heinz dilemma. i can imagine
they were madly in love, the moon & such,
but surely it was wrong. maybe his act grew tired?
(in my version of the film
                                      he is a ringmaster.)
elephants can sit still
for a long time & begging is a low mileage
act. or maybe the carnival went bankrupt?
and a man without an income may as well be
prematurely placed inside of his hearse.
it’s hard to remember & i know

so little of the present but i do know that
if i hear that Love song by the cure
i just might die tonight & i do know that
if i see another rich “communist” at a dive bar
i’m going to shatter his jaw and i do know that
if all we had left were these few minutes together
i’d just like to say—