the sound of the end

Though our windows are still closed, sealed even by some with plastic and other attempts, you can still hear what Brooklyn sounds like at the end of winter.

Some nights, it’s a hollow roar billowing over the tracks, the elevated highway…from something huge and made of steel with wheels and a mad engine, formed around its own emptiness. After, a shiver a chains breaking on smooth, broken pavement, and the night’s own emptiness – now sharper, and much more obvious.

Or: Out during a walk in the dying light, the pole of a street sign lacking its sign sets up a wild ringing in the heavy wind, as the screw that once held the absent warning of street cleaning rattles and clangs its strange accompanying percussion.

Or: A dog – an imposing one from the sound of it, probably brown or black-coated and definitely black toe-nailed – lofting warnings from the 3rd story window of a brownstone into the chilled air: To all who pass below, unknowing of their trespass: I smell you! I hear you! I hear you!