The Crowd

(22-25 May 1992) after Thomas Gray

Lights of the street, signs, cars compete in the kaleidoscope of El Camino Real as we change perspective, tunneling under the evening stars. We stroll from Su Hong with leftovers in paper boxes to Kepler’s, where, elbow to elbow, we browse the discount tables, looking for books we already know. All the books we do not open. We? Even my wife and daughter have different agendas here. However familiar, each of us is here by a different route, merely changing places, with little we could say we don’t already know. We who do not state our reasons, swimming by without speaking, moving slowly to a tune we have never heard, staring at the paperbacks, are opaque. Opaque.