july and bowery

 

the heat makes me love this city more
thick air makes it tangible and for
once, smaller

i can put my arms clear around new york

blue shoes on the pavement
are stark as birds in flight
purposeful purposeless evening strolls are
made of empanadas, orange dresses, an
energetic malaise

your arm draped on my shoulder makes
me nervous in the way i suppose
nervous feels when it
still feels this good seven months in

and the new shepard fairey off bowrey, a
block-long face painted and braced for war
frames at least two haltingly homeless people pushing by

what is it about new york in the summer that
coxes us to drop our skittish defenses? and
what is it about you that makes pushing
all our belongings around aimlessly in
a shopping cart seem deceptively beautiful?

green is particularly brilliant in low-light
newly arching up the garage outside my window.
this is the quiet spring right before the storm.
i am kneeling on my comforter
and i am seeing if there is a scent
between your two shoulder-blades.
there is.

I saw someone on the train that looked so much like someone I hurt badly. At first, I ran to the other side of the traincar, a complete coward. Once I realized it wasn’t him, I inched closer until I was pretty much in the seat next to him.

That hat, that shirt, that slight slouch. I turned to him and spilled it out. Yes, everyone surrounding thought I was nuts. He was the only one that seemed vaguely amused. I was all knotting and sputtering, telling him how very sorry I was for being such a very stupid and selfish coward, and there weren’t enough words in the English language to make it better. That even while I was doing the confused and silly things I was doing, I had looked down from above myself and had wanted to bring it all to a screeching halt – I would Superman (before that meant something else) back the traincarwreck that I had created, far enough back down the line that he had never even met me. He had and always would deserve so very much better than I gave, and even those wishes were above him because if I really, truly was worth listening to, I wouldn’t have done them in the first place.

And he had the same expression on his face when I was done. He asked if I was going to be okay about it now. It was clear to him and the 12 other people around us that I wouldn’t. And that was how it was supposed to be.

you are asleep in the car on a random street in south philly, chair back and soft snore. i move as carefully as i did on the bus two days ago, when the first three-year-old that ever fell asleep on me relied on the hollow spaces in my heart thrumming louder than my discomfort.

you stay asleep under my fluid jerky readjusting movements. three unattractive latino men walk by, and i lay as awkwardly as i can across the central console: my body as close to yours as i can, one arm on your stomach and the other–

the other comes up behind the back of your chair. it rests on fine felt at least 6 inches from your actual back. but i am holding you here, this mess of an embrace. i stay longer than my limbs allow.

each little season has been so different in this city.

this particular little season has involved a lot of yoga (and pushing myself further with it than i ever have in the past) in a studio with wood floors that creak under big pots of plants, mochi, guitars, a big banana republic tote bag, and the guinea pig running more amuck than ever.

there is the acute possibility that i won’t even be here this time next year. next to impossible to imagine, as i have rooted myself so deeply here that i find digits in boroughs i haven’t been in in weeks. i have no doubt that even if i left for a little while, i’d be back.

it is quiet here for the first time in weeks. approximately 10 weeks. what kinds of measurement do i give to things that don’t even have words? i will try to pin down the elusive with hapless hands and get exactly what it feels like: muddled lines that are so sharp, so clean that i see the ends of days before they even started.

this is one, great roll down a hill, zesty and breathcatching: there is a blur of nothingness that encompasses everything. a flannel draped over my chair, blueberry compote, black labs with tails like happy bees, whiskey drinks in 12 different settings, small pieces of silence that have me averting my glance with thrill of children caught with something beautiful they just made.

what is this beautiful thing that was made? i eat it with two hands and it tastes like peach, like grapefruit, like avocado, like someone opened my stomach and found that someone planned out the most erratic and delicious dinner. force four bottles of wine down my throat, it wouldn’t feel much different.

it happened and is happening, and there is nowhere else in this little drunken piece of heaven i would rather be.

you have eaten my seashell insides, but your mouth is still on mine
so they don’t leave, they stay

you have indian rug-burned me until i am the rawer than raw, but we are
doing this 12 feet underwater
so i burn quietly and painlessly

you have pulled emotions out of me with the tide that i wanted nothing
to do with, but they are the fairest of them all,
so they can stay

i met a man named sheriff last april. he unfolded so slowly, like a lily, that i lost track of his face. i found parts of him all winter in the most unusual places: foot on my thigh, wrist on my forehead, thumb in my beltloop.

what he lacked in words he made up for in presence – i once followed a thread of glow all the way to his studio, and you could have sworn, oh yes, you could have just SWORN that someone had smudged out the rest of the world in black magic marker the whole way there.

like a smack of branches to the dirt; like clean-shaven legs new against the sheets; like the cat’s stretch so deep and luxurious, you swear he is realigning the stars:

i have come back into myself. it is not easy, but it is light, and although tired, i am now awake.