Sunset Since you hadn't come, I stepped on the cracks and waited. Nothing broke, so then I skipped the lines. I loitered by the sundial. I perched on the fountain's rim. I stroked the great stone lions. I sat on the stoop and scanned the passersby. You never came. The crackling energy this city's known for -- was it overrated? Daylight was dwindling, and something sharp had sliced tall oblong shapes out of the sky. One color at the edge of these black boxes lingered as I did, loth to disappear: pale red. You didn't come. And I remembered the woman on the shuttle, feral-faced, red-jacketed, clutching a black guitar case and swaying with the rattling of the train, baring her pointed teeth in the dark window. -- Rachel Hadas