Another cold and dreary day
to set along the other cold and dreary days.
A steady drizzle covers my eyeglasses despite the large hood covering my head.
People appear as islands even more so on rainy days.
A young boy runs in circles in front of the Federal Reserve,
ignored by his mother but not by the homeless man who watches him.
A baby in a stroller sits under a blanket several feet away
from the same mother, ignored, too.
Water from a puddle soaks through my cheap shoes, chilling my toes.
Inevitably, someone will say, “At least it’s not snow.”
The rain does nothing for this ugly city.
Inside, the woman sitting at the front lobby desk never has anything to do.
She stares dreamily out the glass walls,
she can’t really be seeing the city with that look on her face.
She poses quietly, like a woman in a 19th century painting, a Degas counter girl
or a dance rat; a woman bathing or brushing her hair.
She, too has no privacy.
Even on the elevators we are watched.
And we watch ourselves in our reflections in the doors.
We watch each other but time still seems to fly by us
like a silver streamer in the wind.
What is it that we gain from watching?
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