Two days before
the autumnal equinox,
I want to slip off the main trail
and run into Cedar Lake’s
eastern woods.

Let the wind
and slope and root
burst through dirt
determine when
I make it home. If.

This age of anxiety
gives way to another age
of insecurity
that rolls over
cold slabs

onto the coast that is
never going to clear.

Now I fear
the very existence
of dumpsters
in the alley
and what they contain.

The Flatiron Building,
the Hotel Chelsea,
the McBurney Y
before it moved
nine blocks south—

West 23rd Street, New York, New York,
I love you.

I want to meet the blue
that can’t decide
if it wants to be
purple or gray.
With an A not an E.

I pray
my favorite season
calms the ground
and cools the sky
with quartz-flecked slate.