The Neon Artist in December

Snow everywhere, like the salt electrons jump from, as gas snaps and the tube hisses with light. I am holding just now the hooked underbeak of the great flamingo: cool glass, a little dusting of phosphor. Just off through the tree-line, the New Year waits with its bells, as in the ballroom of the Grand Hotel, stretched thirty feet up to the promenade deck, the back-kneed, S-necked mate waits with its own ringing, its soft, rattle-whistle of argon. What a pair they will make: ice-pink tubeworks north and south on the ballroom floor. And below: foxscarves, carnations, the pull and push of the long trombones. Flamingos! And now the moon pressing back through the tree-line. Close your eyes. Let us say we are children together, ten, perhaps twelve. I see neon: a steadfast landscape of DEPOT, HEIDELBERG, VACANCY. And you? Women in cardigans? A certain leaf tree? Perhaps the gleam of your dress shoe as you welcome the New Year. The ballroom is thick with smoke and laughter. Two birds, of course, north and south. Then the catch in your breath as an uncle explains the impact of vapor and salt, how a light that has never been curls up through the century—swank, incredibly still. Our times , he laughs, and in from the thin roadways all the WELCOMES, the PALMISTS and EXITS, all the boneworks blown to their plush, just bearable tones curl up to a wing and S-neck. High above you, cupped left, right on the ballroom floor, that ice-pink, still parenthesis. Then foxscarves. The flick of the black shoes.