It's in the pocket in the real tight pants

The moon is doing the full Caspar David Friedrich, rolling over the roofs of Somerville in a shibuichi halo of cloud. Last night I dreamed of driving over the Tobin Bridge in the days of the Central Artery, which I had not realized was still mapped as firmly into my mind as it seems to be; then I dreamed of organized crime at a house party in Chelsea, but I managed to avoid becoming one of the friends of Eddie Coyle. I am missing the freedom of my city and frustrated by the people who are taking it for granted without regard for the safety of the people they share it with. I miss the Charles River and the Fort Point Channel and Broad Canal. I miss subway platforms and commuter trains. I miss the rituals after appointments, visiting the same restaurants, following different routes home. I used to walk half a day across Boston, learning its streets and bridges and statues and ghost signs and the changing light on its waters—the tomb of the seagull kings—I am worried I won't even recognize its skyline by the time I get back to it. My health remains a tickybox of comorbid conditions. I have a lovely black cat who climbed onto my chest around seven in the morning and purred to be heard through a concrete bunker and fell asleep on me with his paws folded under his chin and has hardly left my lap all day, which has not been so cold that I could persuade myself it was nothing more than utilitarian heat-seeking. With its wooden pallets sitting among the weeds under the stage-white streetlight, the corner of the parking lot across the street looks more like Technicolor noir every time I look at it. I re-read Charlotte Armstrong's Mischief (1950) last night when I couldn't sleep. We had feijoada and plantains and bacalhau for dinner.