PARADE

We are walking down Lark street in Albany, state capital city, with its stained glass brownstones lining the green tulip park, concentric circles that bleed out, morph to skinnier row houses outward, away from that architecture of esteem,  brick to wood, more people slumped, strewn to hot days, hot nights.

We are walking down Lark Street with sandwiches and coffees. Every man who passes  looks. One has no teeth and a black t-shirt with yellow print: SHOW ME THE HONEY.


Where Lark meets Central the Memorial Day Parade is coming. We hear it, approaching like low thunder. Where the two streets cross, we meet head on.


Just the white boys marching. Vietnam. Korea. Civil War. Boy Scouts. Uniforms of different colors, different horns, guns, hats. Different fights. Different songs. Different orders. Left, right, left.


And then, in back, with a gap between the last of the war boys and the first of the new noise, the neighborhoods spill out in their humanity and their harmony, all fists and shouts, yelling loud intention.


It’s so hot out. One woman holds her toddler by the waist to her hip. He is released, his back flops, bouncing to her march.


On the sidelines people slump and smile and wave their little flags. Part solidarity part cooling effect.

On the sidelines it’s all children and women and brown skin. We are watching, close and distracted.


The sun beats onto our surfaces. The city is sitting there like a waistline, can’t help it, blatant floater between that deep pine wildness above its belt, the tangled concrete metropolis below.


One leader tosses skittles to the crowd. The packages hit the ground. We reach for them, push them around with our shoes.