Walking

...across Union Street, through Carroll Gardens, under the silk tree, through the valley of the shadow of the Gowanus, where a sidewalk garden is bursting with flowers, past the wholesale casket district, where they are always busy, and then rising back into the trees of the Slope. There’s the guy who has been asking me for a decade if I have a cigarette for him. He asks me again. I remember when he was interviewed in a local paper about his mental state, so I just shake my head. Speaking of that most vicious of addictions: going back downhill, look up at the NW corner of 5th and Union, above that trendy rag store, to see the old Lillianette ad. Can’t figure out why a developer hasn’t covered up that sign, for the Brooklyn-made cigars sold to the elevated riders who once whizzed down the avenue, with another “luxury” high-rise.