HOT NIGHT ON WATER STREET
A hot mi9summer night on Water Street-
The boys in jeans were combing their blond hair
Watching the girls go by on tired feet;
And an old woman with a witch's stare
Cried "Praise the Lord!" She vanished on a bus
With hissing air brakes, like an incubus.
Three hardware stores, a barbershop, a bar,
A movie playing Westerns-where I went
To see a dream of horses called
The Star.
...
Some day, when this uncertain continent
Is marble, and men ask what was the good
We lived by, dust may whisper "Hollywood."
Then back along the river bank on foot
By moonlight. . . . On the West Virginia side
An owlish train began to huff and hoot;
It seemed to know of something that had died.
I didrt't linger- sometimes when I travel
I think I'm being followed by the Devil.
At the newsstand in the lobby, a cigar
Was talkative: "Since I've been in this town
I've seen one likely woman, and a car
As
she was crossing Main Street, knocked her down."
I was a stranger here myself, I said,
And bought the
New York Times,
and went to bed.
Louis Simpson
