The glamorous city I remember
has become a war zone overnight.
Desperate street vendors offer green
specked rice. Black choppers
land in ditches. Sundown, they
slam us into bunkers behind thick
iron doors. We huddle together,
conjuring how it was before:
bright flags everywhere, music
spilling from exotic mouths,
sweet smelling temptation swirling
out open doors. Now it looks like we
may not make it. On a street corner,
a broken man shambles toward
me, fumbling with a cigarette,
unshaven, hair blaring out from
under an American ball cap, clothes
covered with soot and smear. He moves
spastic, demolished by this godless
place, this craven circumstance. Close
enough to touch, I see that he is you.
by Greta Bolger
After decades of impersonating her father, Greta Bolger has finally settled on the womanly side of the tracks, kissing the few willing babies who will kiss her back and coaxing flowers to bloom in thought balloons that arise from the heads of the disillusioned. She practices art in words and pictures as well as in daily life.
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