Just north of the city jail: marble stoops chipped at the corners, the exterior walls doorless and windowless and muted with plywood. The friezes have crumbled away from the roofs and left the upper rooms open to the sky.
It’s winter, but forget for a minute all this stalled decay. Already the days are lighter, a minute longer every evening, a few heavy things set aside for this: the Sunday morning train to Philadelphia, a friend I haven’t seen in years, a ball of orange wool. I sleep on a couch in the Old City with a cat curled into the crook of my knees.