of being
this kind of witch

where buoys
the color of flaming swords

float next to gigantic statues
of the kiss

a sulty slow-moving boat
leaves behind

a kaleidoscope
of the famous and infamous

bobbing in its wake / happy
to pour

the smoothest
nitro cold brew into tall glasses

for us to sip
as we watch another chapter

in a billboard world
pass by / a Victorian era

beach resort hotel
with a ripened red roofed turret

collides with a chalky white chateau
draped on a hill

overlooking Sunset Boulevard
in the same frame

the unlicensed coast along
wide / wider / widest boulevards

all this visible light
broadcasts in 22-mile stretches

a magic wand with a wavelength
of roughly 608.81 nanometers

shines on / not another
survivor’s guide /

no / a thriver’s rapture
we can recite to one another

as it swirls its pages above
the smoke and signs and peaks and dust

months seem like years
a whole summer almost gone
you’ve been my connection for decades

to a sculpted world
and missing link
to branches and branches

of pedestrian and bicycle highways
that stretch across counties
and desire to run uninterrupted

by stanza break
or choking
on polluted yarns

hiding John Ashbery’s words
beneath a giant tarp

draped over you
has tortured me
unveiled and back in business

you are the most welcome
sight I’ve seen
since the flashing LED

Central Park Car Free
sign / his words now reclad
in overly ardent metal / a flash

I hope will settle down
with time and weather
Minnesota is certain to deliver

wish it would
get very cool / and wet /

to put out the wildfires
burning across British Columbia
and California

smoke spreads across the country
drifts over the Atlantic Ocean
3,000 miles away / this is no joke

buckets of prayers
and crocodile tears
pouring onto corrugated steel roofs

covering farmers markets
spilling through gutters
to sympathy gardens

will not suffice
the handwriting becomes hyper-legible
like never before / and red walls

do smile
in that droopy way
red walls do

as I cross safely over lanes
of lethal engines on wheels
on your freshly laid boardwalk

I see the warm dead
but not scarred
wood smile too

tiny particles in hazy air
plumes seen from outerspace
those drawdowns

in Jeffersonian yellow
elegant baby blue / darkening green
nice paint job / Irene

it begins with

get off my island

passes through euphonic perfection for

beware the Johnny Cash poster
hanging on the cellar door

swings around a cul-de-sac of

no more masks

pauses for a layover of false alarms at

last stop Van Cortlandt Park
242nd Street

charges ahead over

you can all go
look at the fuckin’ stars

makes a u-turn at

Central Park car free

speeds up to capture

Papa aren’t you gonna buy me
a skunk lock

slows down to record

are you experienced
with Rhode Island lowlands

crosses a bridge after

the caterpillar does all the work
but the butterfly gets all the publicity

reaches its destination just in time for

how many more signs do you need

another wall covered with crooked
picture frames / the paintings

deserted us decades ago / we’re floating
on a makeshift wooden raft

without promise of a sandbar
to relieve our anxiety

over all those cars we parked
sideways / accuse you of sabotaging

pedestrians by riding that Bird
scooter on the sidewalk where

motors do not belong / you blame me
for climbing stairs

in those unholy-sounding clogs
we agree to a truce

join forces to attempt
to pry out that wrench

wedged between two boardwalk planks
where our dreams can never be repaired

we fail / neither knows why

there’s a West Side Market
in the East Village / how did we get here

my girlfriends and I wore wooden shoes
because we wanted to fit in / because

we wanted to sabotage the peace
on a Sunday morning

we wanted to sabotage
our shins / ourselves / because

a horse-sized duck scared us
100 duck-sized horses scared us more

because it was time
to maroon Gulliver again

because staying woke
wasn’t a thing yet

because that raft won’t move
fast enough to create a wake

because we had a routine
back in the 60s

my imaginary friend and I
her name was Katie

we would meet at the swing
tied to the sycamore in the backyard

so hot and humid
in northern Indiana in July

we should have been
on the island / she knew it too

I called the shots / did all the talking
she disappeared in the 70s

now she’s back with a new name / Alexa
makes suggestions on how to live my life

I want to tell her it’s too late
want to get back to looking

for that sandbar
could change her accent

and her gender / wish I remembered
how to turn her off

protect dwellers

collect vials

involve tubes / caps

litter streets

reds / blues /

greens / buffs

buy string

creates necklaces

supply retailers

sell virtue / glass /

pipe / visions

wear vessels

contain blood / hair

ashes / crack

destroys nerves

shatter villains

mock virtue

conceals bodies

house veins

transmit signals

alert leaves

adorn trees

restore virtue

covers windows

collapse walls

bees use tongues
to lap nectar from cups

of flowers / size does matter
when it comes to honeysuckles

the sign says
pollinators welcome / bee a friend

puns crash and shrivel
without snickers to ensure survival

nouns and verbs are our friends
the subject and predicate live together

in a rowhouse / the rowhouse
won’t burn down / the garden won’t flood

denizens and dwellers don’t need
to wait to grow a pair

of sea-legs / tourists do
the cheating / the boat circles

the island that stretches
a half-marathon in length

not a circle / an egg

leaning over the side
travelers spill drinks

like a tongue licking lips
made of metal

from a colossus
that lives underwater

the monster comes up for air
not yet choking

no one said anything about
adverbs / prepositions / conjunctions

that hide willingly beneath
bridges / over berms / branches in hand

no one is a pronoun
see how our enemies hover within

a woman seizes the hem
of Lady Liberty to stir those silent lips
to move finally / to release a bell’s clean outburst
that will drown out all that trumped-up noise
about just get some nets
blowing in the hot July 4th air
evacuate the island / melt the ice
from another white Russian being sucked down low

she goes high as she can
to disrupt pyrotechnic-loving hands / to trespass
on behalf of those invisible mothers of exile
a child’s burning tears / with steady eyes / brackish breath
the lady watches over them / watches you / tweeter
tangled in your own weave beware

It’s not always a skunk she smells
deep in the wooded heart
of the island. Not mothballs

but rare moths aflutter
in the frost bottom
surrounded by scrub oak

and sad sand whispers
she emits along with that peculiar
faded light.

Nor seeping into an upper floor
hotel corridor
from one or more of those rooms

she cannot enter.
None of the plastic key cards
she’s collecting in her purse

will open those doors
or the ones she used to open
with metal access controllers—

blade and bow and
shoulder and cuts—attached

to a chain of unrelated events
to gain entry
into those old dwellings

where a wild animal
with black and white
fur did hang outside at night.

I swallow the last drops
of New York City water

in my Minneapolis apartment
put the empty metal bottle in the sink

today is the 30th anniversary of my first trip
to Minneapolis

I flew the same route
LaGuardia to MSP

crossing over a piece of Canada
and some of the Great Lakes

I didn’t know then what I know now
about the quality of water

in those Manhattan rooftop tanks
and interior pumps

there’s a map that reveals
which ones have been inspected in the last year

and those filled with whole pigeon
and squirrel bones

the Hotel Beacon passes the cleanliness test
some days taste better than yesterday some don’t

I stopped darkening doors decades ago
when I lived among the guns I never felt safe

the one entrance does not lead
to the other exit

the wound I blame on the man behind the door
bears no resemblance to his blistered fingers

he no longer lives there
I no longer live inside

that wound
merely visit it on occasion

when I stay in the Hotel Beacon
drink its quality water

and marvel at my 11th floor view
of the Ansonia across Broadway

I remember some other firsts

experiencing the grandeur inside the Beacon Theatre next door
seeing him and his infamous Minneapolis band play live there

he wore a tattered white button-down shirt
he was drunk I was sober

it would be the reverse
when we finally meet in the Flats years later

Johnny Thunders opened and they didn’t play
Johnny’s Gonna Die

Johnny Johnny Johnny
he would be dead by the time of that Cleveland enounter

New York City
Minneapolis

how did I get here
I will never put home in a sentence that doesn’t include both

a dead rat with fresh
blood staining its mouth
becomes a mile marker
for your run along
the Hudson River Greenway

when greenway doesn’t
always mean green

you know you are
in New York City
but what am I

you know you
are in New York City
when you realize
your jaywalking skills
need a refresh

when the geese are so urban
and fearless

they ignore you
as they sit in the middle
of the too well-traveled path

when rivers flow
two ways and aren’t
really rivers
but tidal estuaries
and straits

when you wait and wait
on line never in

you know you are in New York City
when every living thing takes
more risks with life

death and squeezing onto a narrow island
without falling off

when all the languages
in the world
shove themselves into one subway car
and you get to participate
in the brackish hum