New York, New York, New York

(2-1-09)

I want to scream I'm here
I want to run up to strangers
strangers in coats
strangers all alone
strangers in groups
strangers with dogs
strangers with children

I want to run up to the couple across
the room and interrupt their
making-out session
say I have arrived!
I am alive!
I can breathe again

(instead I wait to order coffee)

this server is chic in her black-night
native New Yorker vision
she doesn't know what she's got
she moves to this rhythm
she possesses this energy
without effort, without recognition
smugly
she is so cavalier
throws it over a chair
like one too many furs

ahh, how she lives my fantasy
without the relish I would
without letting it linger
on her tongue
like i would,
without pulling it up to her chin
and rocking
and rocking
and rocking

I have arrived
I am here - here - here
and for this moment
now
I pull on New York
like skin.

ksaint