Pretzel Man
I amble down Manhattan Island
thinking about the bare spots in Cezanne’s paintings
where the unworked canvas shows through,
where the sense of his presence is deepest,
and thinking how the dark schist boulders in Central Park,
the unworked bedrock of the Island,
are the obdurate bare spots
of Olmsted’s landscaped canvas,
while eating a salt pretzel and keeping a canny eye cocked
for those uncomposed moments when a composition
breaks through, pinning my restless eye
to the visible world and one of its infinite arrangements,
and wondering if photos can have empty spaces,
and what the unpainted ground of the mind might be,
when some local hustlers push tickets at my face
for the tourist bus downtown to Broadway.
As a tourist I’m free not to speak, so I don’t,
and one of them says: Pretzel man don’t want nothin’.
And for just that moment, he’s right.
David Noah
11-18-14
