The air giggles, full of
cherry blossoms
and the shouts of college girls buying next season's $20
flip-flops.
From under cover of
cadet hats, the
hipsters stop sulking and are peeking around corners with shy smiles.
They are in
American Apparel in big sunglasses,
nervously tickling the hot pants.
Broadway smells like incense and doughnuts today,
the smoke of
one-hitters and pedophiles' cigarette bribes,
and there was a time when I was young.
Magic Dragon, glitter jasmine-scented lotion, handfuls of beads like cheap
glass candy, shoplifted cassette tapes --
(it was a long time ago).
We are all owed our
summer romance on
Capitol Hill.
School lets out and the newest teenagers,
tall girls tailed by stumpy, smooth-faced boys,
go trailing self conscious laughter,
waving
to-go cups and swinging accessory-sized shopping bags.
At night the hipsters and gay couples with
tight jeans in the right rinse
shake their wet hair and laugh,
jaded looking into the sunset.
The
shopgirls crowd at bus stops back to
First Hill or
Lake City,
an
IHOP International Breakfast for dinner,
French stripes,
Swiss dots,
American thighs.
The
gutter punks wash in and out with the rain.
Always someone coming and going, always a crowd to watch through the window of the
falafel place,
always a buzz in the air and hang out for a few hours, you might
find out where the party's at.
Dick's:
the retro
Boeing-era heart crushed between condos and tacky storefronts
is the popular girl who was nice to everyone.
Did you walk by Dick's and no one was there?
No you didn't,
stop lying.
Deluxe, Special,
cheeseburger,
hamburger.
Chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry.
No substitutions.
It's my street, my summer.
I've got it going on in those boots, I do what I want.
If the American Apparel display alerts us that
fashion has changed again, my apartment is two blocks away.
My bags don't swing, paper pouches in the wrong size,
giant pet food or birth control in its red and blue clutch.
I don't hang out at Magic Dragon. Much.
At ten I go out, push through
U District imports, drink on Pike/Pine
where the jukeboxes are good.
2am shines its light on the world and we are pushed outdoors.
Elitists and tourists, what say you? It's too warm to go home.
We queue up in serpentine lines outside the
drive-in.
In the summertime, I eat a lot of
Dick's.