Basic Miracle of Music

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Let’s play lazy
eights and live
forever one night
in September.

The humidity won’t
bring us closer
to the outro
or its echo
repeating in
dark green.
A pigeon tries
to balance

on a hummingbird
feeder. You and I
were so
dimorphic. Tomorrow’s

sun will set
two minutes earlier
than it did today.
It will take me

two minutes longer
to memorize
those faces
decked out
in red and black.
It’s not just me—
all women look good
in red. I am

the erasable kind.
I won’t smear or smudge
or stain your fingers
the way the others do.

I fit snugly
inside a milk chute
no one bothered
to brick up.

Look for me
there where

I’ll be gently waking
the ruby-throated ones.

Lost & Found Summer

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I look for you
everywhere—beneath grates
and cellar doors
that open onto city sidewalks.

On the Brooklyn Bridge
pedestrian ramp
next to a woman selling
sliced mango.

In the Fulton Street subway station.
Behind that window
covered by Banksy’s (or Mr. Brainwash’s)
“Love is the Answer” Einstein.

In the Hudson, over the underpass,
inside the fermented
raspberry smoothie bottle
before it explodes.

An instant murder scene
impersonation stains
a white room
in the Lexington Hotel.

We lose an old friend
to a heart attack in July,
find each other
at his funeral after 31 years.

Maybe you didn’t want
to be found. Maybe I should be losing

myself in Grand Central
sky constellations instead.

Sidewalks of New York Speak

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You wander through
your grandmother’s New England garden
in red sneakers with an old red
wooden toy organ
strapped around your neck.
Turning the crank, humming along:

East Side, West Side,
all around the town.

Before you can read
you’ll see the writing
in blue chalk at your feet.

Come find me.
Memorize that map
of my guts.
Know me better
than your own hands
that dig into pockets

in search of
an old subway token
with a tiny Y cut out.

Never learn
to drive. Love my one-way streets
and two-way sidewalks forever instead.

Going Direct

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I am a tale
of two cities

ping ponging east
to north midwest
and repeat

the net getting
tangled and slack

big to minnie
no I won’t say it

pomme
there I did

Atlantic Ocean
estuarial to Mississippi

River and falls and lots of lakes
the Spuyten Duyvil
and Minnehaha creeks

four seasons
some longer than others
much longer

so cold so hot so pretty
in October

First Avenue
to the Bowery Ballroom

no more CBGB
no more Uptown Bar

no more every night
with smokes and shots

Walker Whitney
MIA MoMA Met

Central Park
Cedar Lake Trail

High Line
skyway skyway skyway

best of worst of
in a continuous loop
blurs the distinction

Loring Park
Kingsbridge the Bronx
Uptown the Upper West Side

home home
I say it twice

in two different time zones
to mark my place

The Leaving

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Walk just a few more blocks
before it’s time
to catch the shuttle
off the island
into Queens
to discover new reasons
to gripe about LaGuardia.

Just one more block
with Greta Garbo
where I can sing of solitude
deep inside the crowd—

compressed /
language /
poetry /
New /
York /
City

Urban Paradox

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When in doubt,
when only anonymity
inside the margins
of a crowd will do.

When my heart aches
for the younger me
who lost her father
three years ago.

When I don’t trust
my capacity for keeping
a stiff upper lip
above a lower one that droops.

When I see wild turkeys on train tracks
across from the VA Hospital
and wonder if
one of them is you, Dad.

When I wonder how
to endure one more minute
without you
in this world.

Begin to think
about those other worlds.

Fear trumps peace
and I struggle to forgive

my even younger self
for all the times
she gave away her power
for the wrong reasons—any reason.

And the knot in my throat
makes it hard to swallow
the present moment,
impossible to breathe.

When I feel utterly powerless
and ready to find my strength
and competitive drive again
running up the northern hills in Central Park

because after 31 years
nowhere else
drags it out of me
so completely.

When I’ve got no place
to go
to be so alive,
I go to New York.

27 August 2015

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I fly to LaGuardia
not Newark
because

even after all these years
since you left New Jersey
when you could no longer speak
or navigate your way
to the correct exit

and three years
since you left
the world altogether

I could not bear to walk past that spot
just beyond security
where you used to wait
for me—tears in your eyes,
mine too.

LaGuardia
not Newark
because

I won’t choke
on memories
through Queens
to Manhattan
or the Bronx.

Proteus (Old Man of the Sea)

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“I love my free spirit.
I trust my creative power.
I generate the wind beneath my wings
and enjoy the journey.”
—Michael Nash Mantra

Since you died three years ago,
whenever I fly
I find you
in the clouds.

On this date, you have come to me
as a wave breaking
against a jetty
in Oak Bluffs,

as a young fox
darting along a beach road
on the farthest tip
of Cape Cod at dawn.

As I board another plane
bound for New York,
I wonder what form
you’ll assume this year.

Gulls don’t
get so high.

You might wait till I land.
The wrong season
for a Sandy Hook harbor seal
haul out.

No, something will soar
overhead if I can be
patient, still
as the Palisades.

Anything with wings, Dad.
Show me anything with wings.

Allegheny Monongahela Ohio

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“Throw the calendar away,
gonna find a jukebox of steel. . . .
Revelry in borrowed clothes.”
—Jay Farrar (from “Jukebox of Steel”)

Two rivers merge
to make a third.

No longer a prehistoric tool
made of flint, I am

a new sidescraper
made from an abandoned,

three-story coke works mill
115 feet longer

than the Empire State Building
is tall.

I don’t make fire
since I put down

the pack and lighter,
since I gave away my power

for the last time.
A parting gift

for a man
who doesn’t fear

borders or wormholes.

Two songs merge
to make a third

I hum from a train
as it rumbles through

the Rust Belt.
I’ve gotten on

the wrong one.
The Capitol Limited

not the Lake Shore Limited.
The Empire Builder runs

nowhere near here.
And two cities won’t merge

to make a home.

Why

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because
Minnesota boys

the first cool night in late August
and a blanket
pulled off the shelf

because
the Mississippi
any time of day or season

because
First Avenue
with its ceiling replaced

because
winter windchill
bragging rights

the first warm day
in April
maybe it’s May maybe June

because
Loring Park
Armajani’s Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge

John Ashbery
in both directions

because
sculptures by
Noguchi Shea Serra

Lake of the Isles
Cedar Lake Trail
Minnehaha Creek

because
the C.C.

because
Minnesota boys