Philadelphia

A parody of the poem "Pittsburgh" by James Allen Hall

I avoid your Fairmount Park. I gag on your Broad Street

gas stations. Your Society Hill, no way to avoid

parking tickets. Worst of all, though, is your Center City,

an area, one early morning, I watched a friend

smoke a cigarette outside of Little Pete’s. I leered,

hating your one way streets, your South Street,

All of your Market Street,

The buildings and etchings in street corners where he would schmooze with strangers.

I wait what seems like hours, avoiding his secondhand smoke

gazing at your devil’s taxi, so I could pretend

for him that I did not mind. Your lack

of bridges give no aesthetic to the skyline

I distract myself with. In the morning, we’re in bed.

He does not tell me whom he thinks of. I tell him to brush

the nicotine out of his teeth, chagrined to

kiss him. Philadelphia, you’re all history and hustle with a facade of

“the big city”, hardening a man but leaving the innards

soft to spill out when shattered. I’ll keep to myself tonight,

swimming flatly along the mainline, your prep schools

blowing smoke up the a*s of your strange ivy league, until all you are,

Philadelphia, is a tired rainstorm

that will bleed out

the light of morning,

as impossible to watch as you are to name.