soft parts
Walking through Chinatown
I was reminded of the honesty of young women
buying fresh fish. The largeness of their dead eyes and all that ice.
New York is new to me again, a postcard turned over and re-read.
All the faces I know have slowly seeped into the tunnels,
leaving only static-strained connections, a handful of airkisses.
The helmet-less bicyclist marvels me--moving through traffic
like a vulnerable raptor-- and the dead chicken marinate
in the glass windows like large jewels.
Too many mirrors in this borough, even the god-soldier
has got something of my knee-shake in the tremor of her hand.
Sitting on a stoop near a buzzing highway, I cried hiccupy tears
into my notebook while an EMT watched me from his truck
--a sloppy wet animal with a bird drawn on her dress.
I've been leaving for longer than I realize
and only now, waiting for the late train do I ask myself, where from?
If not to escape the incessant steam and sleeplessness,
if my heart yelps at the old women with feather hats
and the smell of ocean salt rips my chest apart,
then what rope has tied me to this boat set for leaving? Who
has upped the prices of fried dough patties on Brighton Beach
and built condominiums around Dreamland like a Lego set?
Truth is, most nights, I am not sleeping. Two days ago, a ghost
whispered in my ear and collection agencies keep calling
to settle accounts I never knew I started. That's the trouble isn't it?
Keeping track of the accounts we start. Everyday,
old lovers come around offering up bones for me to suck the marrow. Everyday, I talk to the girl I love a little less, measuring
the space I take in all her spacelessness. She, in her own strange city
that is so colorless even the rain tastes only of rain,
asks me one question underneath all others--
does she..or doesn't she?
But who can afford answers when cities are always changing?
Here, there are no squatter rights and eviction notices litter
the un-polished floorboards of my heart.
I hesitate to admit how sometimes the meat is tempting,
when one lives off of telephone scraps.
When I get nervous, my stutter comes back, like a door-creak
(some afflictions never leave you even if people do).
I-I-I finished a tarot card for someone else today, watercolor
made of pencil and spit. I can't bring myself to say it.
Something like betrayal clogs even my thickest veins.
Spreading color with a wet pinkytip, I think of the way she asked
so insisting-- like it was something I was meant to do.
And I remembered the way
my first girlfriend claimed a self-portrait I had made
for herself, I am still learning how to say no twice.
She does. I say into the phone and as I drag my boots
across the uneven sidewalk, I repeat it-- the one--
wincing at the oddity of prime numbers. The words
soften in my mouth and taste like metal,
the bitterness of distance and a hint of blood.
The marinating chicken mock me, my feet hurt
and I love her like a freak show act
swallowing and un-swallowing the same sword.
I think my knees are ugly, I tell her, but she dissents.
I ask her what she knows about knees like mine.
She rolls around the minute before reminding me
the ways knees bent over shoulders have
an indescribably beautiful weight.
I want to be true to you, I say out loud, to the streetlights
and lampposts with plastic flowers taped high.
Untouchable graves I blow kisses at, watching
the cars drive by and wanting to have her belly there
to push my palm against and protect
from oncoming traffic.
Dark streets in NYC have started to make my heart beat faster,
like it's getting ready for the inevitable attack. I have never been
more scared of powerlessness, or more honest.
I told my brother recently, I wanted a hedgehog for a pet.
He laughed-- told me about the way that owls hunt them,
rolling them over and over as if in play, until they lie
stomach up and vulnerable.
I know that I carry owl medicine, the sharp beak of my intuition
is in danger of ripping all the soft parts--apart.
I was reminded of the honesty of young women
buying fresh fish. The largeness of their dead eyes and all that ice.
New York is new to me again, a postcard turned over and re-read.
All the faces I know have slowly seeped into the tunnels,
leaving only static-strained connections, a handful of airkisses.
The helmet-less bicyclist marvels me--moving through traffic
like a vulnerable raptor-- and the dead chicken marinate
in the glass windows like large jewels.
Too many mirrors in this borough, even the god-soldier
has got something of my knee-shake in the tremor of her hand.
Sitting on a stoop near a buzzing highway, I cried hiccupy tears
into my notebook while an EMT watched me from his truck
--a sloppy wet animal with a bird drawn on her dress.
I've been leaving for longer than I realize
and only now, waiting for the late train do I ask myself, where from?
If not to escape the incessant steam and sleeplessness,
if my heart yelps at the old women with feather hats
and the smell of ocean salt rips my chest apart,
then what rope has tied me to this boat set for leaving? Who
has upped the prices of fried dough patties on Brighton Beach
and built condominiums around Dreamland like a Lego set?
Truth is, most nights, I am not sleeping. Two days ago, a ghost
whispered in my ear and collection agencies keep calling
to settle accounts I never knew I started. That's the trouble isn't it?
Keeping track of the accounts we start. Everyday,
old lovers come around offering up bones for me to suck the marrow. Everyday, I talk to the girl I love a little less, measuring
the space I take in all her spacelessness. She, in her own strange city
that is so colorless even the rain tastes only of rain,
asks me one question underneath all others--
does she..or doesn't she?
But who can afford answers when cities are always changing?
Here, there are no squatter rights and eviction notices litter
the un-polished floorboards of my heart.
I hesitate to admit how sometimes the meat is tempting,
when one lives off of telephone scraps.
When I get nervous, my stutter comes back, like a door-creak
(some afflictions never leave you even if people do).
I-I-I finished a tarot card for someone else today, watercolor
made of pencil and spit. I can't bring myself to say it.
Something like betrayal clogs even my thickest veins.
Spreading color with a wet pinkytip, I think of the way she asked
so insisting-- like it was something I was meant to do.
And I remembered the way
my first girlfriend claimed a self-portrait I had made
for herself, I am still learning how to say no twice.
She does. I say into the phone and as I drag my boots
across the uneven sidewalk, I repeat it-- the one--
wincing at the oddity of prime numbers. The words
soften in my mouth and taste like metal,
the bitterness of distance and a hint of blood.
The marinating chicken mock me, my feet hurt
and I love her like a freak show act
swallowing and un-swallowing the same sword.
I think my knees are ugly, I tell her, but she dissents.
I ask her what she knows about knees like mine.
She rolls around the minute before reminding me
the ways knees bent over shoulders have
an indescribably beautiful weight.
I want to be true to you, I say out loud, to the streetlights
and lampposts with plastic flowers taped high.
Untouchable graves I blow kisses at, watching
the cars drive by and wanting to have her belly there
to push my palm against and protect
from oncoming traffic.
Dark streets in NYC have started to make my heart beat faster,
like it's getting ready for the inevitable attack. I have never been
more scared of powerlessness, or more honest.
I told my brother recently, I wanted a hedgehog for a pet.
He laughed-- told me about the way that owls hunt them,
rolling them over and over as if in play, until they lie
stomach up and vulnerable.
I know that I carry owl medicine, the sharp beak of my intuition
is in danger of ripping all the soft parts--apart.