It is the city of mirrors, the city of mirages, at once solid and liquid, at once air and stone– Erica Jong

Los Angeles, Magdalene of cities,
doesn’t confine itself to loving
all that is beautiful and good.

That would be cutting out
a lot of loving. Fallen angels
love the strange color of streets

when it rains then rapidly dries,
the mysterious contents of dressers,
the brokenness of black-veneered

stereo shelves, three-legged desks,
all left out in front of graffitied
apartment buildings? The city,

with its gutters & sirens & windows
& parking lots, holds its arms out to you
the way the “natural world” is said to do.

Is the sun glinting off the great glass
structures at 7 a.m., the same overheated
star reflected from a waterhole in Kenya

or a private pond in Maine? I say yes.
In the older, meaner parts of town,
trails can lead to tent cities or to small

gems of coffee shops and to bodegas
which overflow with Tamarind and
Cajeta candies, plantain chips,

40 oz beers, loosies, family photos and
cartoons on the register, music from
an unseen radio, men outside talking.

There is more: West to Hollywood to the
Lilith of myths and monsters. Hear it laugh
from palm-bordered streets that birth

& hold fast the lies of eternal beauty, the freedom
of never-ending buying. Los Angeles believes
in magic. Poverty, illness, loneliness, death, & pain

are made nearly invisible by the city’s
constant re-invention. This is Bosch’s city,
Phillip Marlow’s city, Jake Gittes’ city.

This is where I live and I tell you that
that the innocent monsters & the sidewalks,
doorways, and apartments where they live

are as filling to the hungry eye as any bush
or tree or mushroom or brook or berry or bird.

Some folks get it right: There are always flowers                                   for those who want to see them.*

*Henri Matisse