Cherry-blossomed esplanades weave around the bleached relic remembrances of Athens, Rome, and Sardis, jutting like bone carcasses from utopian avenues named Independence and Constitution or the thin strips of cultivated parks bequeathed to you. Capital city, the oblique raiment of democracy cinched tight around the aorta of western civilization. The diagonal legacy of L'Enfant and Banneker cross-cut by arteries choked with stooped and faceless denizens hailing from Anacostia, Vienna, Bethesda, Cleveland Park and Silver Spring; the loose skin of humanity surging over asphalt, brick, concrete and tile like sluggish corpuscles drawn toward the central pulse of 20th century idealism. Along the Mall they march in family units or are expelled from huge buses in tee-shirted throngs to gap at the trappings of four centuries of agrarian and industrial might. They observe the great Theban obelisk with its snapping coterie of patriotism, the musty halls of history itself - the walls of the dead. Worldly city.

But the purest marble of Jefferson's memorial cannot change what his idea of equality meant, does not purge the dirty secrets of the democratic process or temper the cabled ethos of Williams-Connoly-Crowell-Moring-Wilmer-Cutler-Wiley-Rein-Akin & Gump which are tendered like obscene paper trails over the heads and conscience of the shuffling tribes to the chambers of government, to those fabled pits of Babylon. Listen, there are echoes of wealth behind the vocal remonstrations of food-stamp dialectics and the false pathos of justice trumpeted by fat men in those sun-less vaults of Capital Hill. But for we who walk beneath the long glass windows of monolithic 'K' street firms, the curb-side diatribes of street proselytizers will serve, where the words of God are thrown like passing insults to an unhearing world. Oblivious city.

I have donned this dead-end of Western capitalism like a homey sweater. I have worn these streets and those people have settled like checkered patterns on the fabric I chose. I have worked my way through this impossible city when the happy-hour politics of righteous youth echo in the alleys of Adams Morgan at night, and high-minded piety is flung from their pasty mouths like challenges to our individualism. Straighten up and wipe your eyes I tell them, Kansas is waiting. I have left them and walked by the open-ended question of vacant lots with my hands pushed deep in my pockets and my eyes averted from the unwashed faces crowding the vents and stained cardboard lodgings, some calling - some past hearing- Pray what legislature covers their dignity? I have held my nose in contempt in passing, and thought of kicking the shit out of them with my lizard skin boots for exposing their plight to my senses. Get a job motherfucker. Cursed city.

Yet every fall I marvel again when the polis sheds its skin and the ginka trees carpet the narrow streets of East Dupont with their golden tears. Appointments are rotated, terms expire, and people go back to their distant states or countries leaving this temporary, necessary post in the modern political landscape. Years later they will recall shopping in Georgetowne, or dinner at Jean Louis' and cocktails from the roof of the Hotel Washington. They will remember the shady runs along the river where you can see crews rhythmically working the silver-tipped caps on the face of the water, pacing themselves against the lengthening shadows of monuments. They will have fond remembrances of open air markets where they sampled hand rolled pastas and cheeses sliced to order, or selected fresh cut flowers and painted dishes to buy. Maybe they read the paper over lattes in the late morning sun at quiet cafes. They will speak well of the acres of green parks which add dashes of life to the most jaded neighborhoods, and they might remind you that during intermission you can sip wine on the south portico of the Kennedy Center and watch the winking lights of cars making their way to Virginia. They will say these things because they are all progeny of this place and it has entered their skin and it will not be washed away. This transient world center. this orphan city of the Rebublic. this whore of modern capitalism. This prodigal child of liberty. This splendid jewel of the Potomac - elusive city, ephemeral city.

Mobile city.