a bike ride on the trail downtown
tall buildings and street people
coffee shops, pot shops, names like Heavenly Smoke
tattoo parlors full of posters
waiting rooms filled with customers
adorned, pierced, pre-decorated
jewels in orifices, eyebrows, nostrils
plentiful tourists consulting maps
riding pedicabs, human powered rickshaws
even a giant horse plodding
halfway there coffee with a view
extracting a pocket paint box
twelve colors in tiny squares
holes in the centres after many years
these colors have lasted long
since I gave this box to my mother
nigh on thirty years ago
she never used it but I have made many a sketch
blocks of paint with years left
at the rate I wash them down
hard to blend colors without making them dull
I use them straight, like whiskey
my sketches are so rough
a price paid for speed and simplicity
yet they improve when no longer compared to reality
for a sketch is distilled, yet murky
distinguished by what is missing
