scores of white and silver cars lined up in traffic

the light changes and they proceed making lefts an rights rolling straight ahead

I couldnt see inside them for the white sunlight flashing off their windshields and side windows

I wouldnt have been surprised I wouldnt have been distraught if their drivers their passengers were ghosts pale apparitions a volley of souls accompanying my dead cousin to wherever if anywhere that follows life after passing through the portal of death

             truth be known

                                        I had a couple of healthy whiskys and it occurred to me to have the next with a smoke to contemplate his death my mortality in the threads of its unwinding blue smoke

I walked through the neighborhood down to the main thoroughfare that cuts this tramp town in half 

its where anyone who starts a business and hopes it to prosper plants it on this singular broad artery running north and south

as I walk when I looked up out of the book Im reading the sun glints off passing carglass into my eyes

it lights the inside of my head illuminating and parsing youthful moments he and I shared either his parents farm in Indiana or our grandmothers wooden two-flat in Chicago which Id been trying to distract myself from seeing

across the street a young woman in a yellow top bends at the curb gently extracting a seedling from a storm drain that fed into the street gutter

her breasts sway hypnotically under her blouse as she works her trowel

a tall white plastic pail at her hip is filled three-quarters full by the shadow of the earth inside it

more cars pass  white cars      silver

I closed the book and hold it tight in my fist

ahead of me ran a straight shot of concrete stickled at the curb occasionally with street signs mounted on bright green u-channel posts

the intersection Im walking up on is easily three hundred three twentyfive meters off

I could walk it to blindfolded

I closed my eyes

its oilyblack inside my head

I can hear the whine of traffichear music emanating from radios voices singing along with songs   a HOOT! someone probably recognising Im walking with my eyes shut and trying to frighten me

Im not easily frightened the cool void pleases me

Ive battled Death already
                      fought its dazzlingwhite presence as It bleached and attached itself in my eyes   

                                                                                   shaped Itself
distinctly looking like the African continent inverted  sidled by the sliver of Madagascar  formed out of the ether and began throbbing haunting me the day my cousin died

and for days afterward

it was Death  unmistakably

my health suffered  it declined  

but it wasnt until I admitted Its presence that I was able to rally to fight It

It stubbornly subsided

It thought I might be easy picking because I wasnt well

I watched It vanish

I watched It slip from my eyes as I watched my reflection in the round beveled mirror hanging over the bathroom vanity

the lavenderscented candle burning lashed It with its quivering flame over and over again while It jerked and twisted under its blows  growing smaller and smaller  fainter and fainter

I enjoyed It

then It was gone

I poured another whisky lit a cigar and smiled at his face in the smoke withers where I summonsed him

1315,  Saturday,  8  10. 16
1250,  Sunday,  9  10. 16

Yardbirds  Heart Full of Soul  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7njQ4QJpb64