Teetering down 8am street on flimsy heels,
the last-night party sequins clinging
like spackled glitter to first-morning tatters,
passing among bodega owners sweeping out
the last night,
the first morning
broken spectacles and trampled hats
emblazoned with the digits of the new year,
monumental on last-night billboards
now first-morning dross, no more than
assigned numbers to be scrawled in
checks and forms for the next 365.
The first morning.
The last night.
Brash eleventh-hour promises —
trumpeted on paper horns and traffic jamming
with jazzed yelps from the intoxicated chorus
— now sounding mundane and frail
on the hiss of dawn’s cold blues.
Tag: city living
city leaves
City leaves, keep their color
long into Novembers,
chartreuse and saffron hues
still aflutter on the avenues
while country cousins
dour and rust back home.
City leaves hold on
into their Decembers,
clinging to brittle leases
on reaches intended
for short-term stays
well after they’ve
crinkled brown
trying not to
snap
and
fall.
ascension
Ascending from
my day’s last platform
into Port Authority,
I was drawn up into
the precision voices
of a children’s choir
high on the upper loft.
the head on my ankle
You rest your snout upon the crook of my ankle
and stare ahead across the room
as I do,
gazing thoughtless as the day before.
But what to contemplate?
Your chew toy
or cushion
where the bones are buried?
Or pigeon on the ledge?
Or
city spring
the City
adorns herself
in pink and chartreuse lace
delicately gracing
her steely frame
she checks herself
in her sisters’ mirrors
—urban athletes
they wear the season
differently than
their soft
country cousins
feet clad for concrete
puddles
instead of
fecund
earth



