Listen to Tom Sleigh reading "Crosswalk"here.

Nakedness of air, raiment of words.
Tarred cornices burnished by streetlight.
He, she, passing in the night; my own shadow

Refuting substance, me my own ghost—
The city around me shrinking, lost …
And then this woman—her small steps eroding

White lines from asphalt, a scratch faintly bleeding
On her forehead, her pleasure in dragging
On her cigarette; not phantom, not wife

Or adorer of Ammon, simply she
In her cotton dress, rosettes asserting
Her eye for color, form … Where they dump the city's

Garbage, in the Kills, they throw me in, not knowing
I am soul too, soul hovering in limbo:
I wait, I struggle: Where is the zone,

Imperishable, I must enter?
Moulage head of a god talking in a dream,
Ruler and judge weighing out my heart

On the balance pan, pointing to the staircase
I must climb—and then the old woman
Came into sight: Both of us at the crosswalk,

Traffic blurring by us, fuming
Flurry of ghosts. I want to speak to her,
Ask my way as she navigates through

Glare, eyes fixed on the gutter opposite:
Naked soul in space that opens into
Absence, soul that can speak to no one,