Vostok, draft sketch

There is a lake
under miles of dark ice
warmed below by an anxious earth
It hasn't seen a sun
for fifteen million years
What will it think
when spring arrives
and a hole from above
leaks our wonder
into its privacy
alone never again

Entails

Everybody has an opinion about New York

They tell them to me all the time

Never asking for mine

Well I have one too

I think New York has left

and it never said goodbye

it never waved

it never missed me

it’s not turning back

And my opinion is

New York is not going to have a good time of it

Unless it figures out

that it owes me an apology.

Everybody has an opinion about New York

They hear I’m from there

They tell me about my home

Who am I to say they’re wrong?

It’s not hard to be right

But I have an opinion too

I think New York is stealing things

money, sure, always

but also

letters

language

light

and more

It has stolen everyone I’ve loved

New York has been at this for a long time

I can’t imagine where it puts all its treasure

It must have a huge garage in New Jersey

After all

I don’t think

I am the only one with this problem

But let’s be clear

I let New York do this

It’s our arrangement

for its opal eyes

tell me its nature is different

and secretly I love New York

So ignore my drama

The fault line in my opinions

Like everything else

Lies through me

Anyway, sometimes

New York trades stolen pieces back to me

in exchange for darkness

But when I wake up

They’re always gone.

Everybody has an opinion about New York

It starts

Oh

you live there?

I couldn’t possibly

Or

I would love to

Then I know what’s coming

New York is this

New York is that

Watercolor accounts

of this four hundred year old city

of eight million people

ten thousand cabs

seven hundred thousand buildings

I understand the motivation

To summarize

To answer

To tell

After all

I have an opinion of my own

I am just waiting

For the right question.

Barcelona

Oh Barcelona
Your clay faced women
Sad eyed broken
Why aren't you taking them to lunch today?
It's a shame
It could last all afternoon
And then that lovely green dress
Emptied of its contents
When baked blue light
Marches through evening windows
I promise I'll
Send your city home

Hesperdina

Buenos Aires
smells like hay
Girls with rusty voices
and lard slicked hair
walk past each other
emptying their pockets
on ice cream scarves




 

Montauk

It's amazing
how little the sea needs
a lathered dispatch
of its excess
crunches underfoot
calcium
pearls
mermaid toenails
all sent ashore
with no memories
except the sound
of itself

Some Weather

In the upper midwest
the wind turns
at four o'clock.
An ice edge forms
the oxygen cased
in a sharp, slim blade.

Balestrate

Sicily smells like salt. At dusk the small men climb out of their cabinets and put their hands in their pockets, heading for the square under the statue to wait for their dinner.

Red Hook

In late June

New York

you can smell

the weather

building in the harbor

Headed for the shelterless

island

Unaware

it needs permission

to come ashore