162 City poems

I. O the screech and heat and hate we have for each day's commute, the long wait at the last stop before we go screaming underground, while the pigeons court and shit and rut insolently on the tracks because this train is always late, always aimed at only us, who when it comes with its blunt snout, its thousand mouths, cram and curse and contort into one creature, all claws and eyes, tunneling, tunneling, tunneling toward money. 2. Sometimes a beauty cools through the doors at Grand, glides all the untouchable angles and planes of herself to stand among us like a little skyscraper, so sheer, so spare, gazes going all over her in a craving wincing way like sun on glass. 3. There is a dreamer all good conductors know to look for when the last stop is made and the train is ticking cool, some lover, loner, or fool who has lived so hard he jerks awake in the graveyard, where he sees coming down the aisle a beam of light whose end he is, and what he thinks are chains becoming keys.

I was given a city, with coffee and sunlight. “The coin-purse smell of the subway,” I wrote. In the mornings policemen would stand, lightstruck and pleasured, over trays of danish. Mornings I wrote and workmen raised up their nets. Hallelujah the brick, the debris! I was given a city. The city got between me and God. I was given a house. The curtains breathed over wide sills. There was a leaf in the middle of the floor, I loved the crispness of the leaf. I loved the privacy of sills. The sills sailed, I fell into the sills. The sills got between me and God. I was given a mud hut. The walls curved to meet the ceiling like a tongue curves to make a word. I was given God, with salt and sweet together. I was given a piece of meat. I loved the flesh. I was given bread only. I was given only water. I loved the coolness of the water. The water got between me and the feast. I had an empty plate and there was the color of it. I cannot even describe the color of it. I was given a cell with a window. There was a certain light at evening. I was given nothing but the air, and the air dazzled.

Sometimes we would get hungry for the neighborhood. Walk up the sidewalk towards Chestnut Street. Speak to the Rev holding the light-skinned baby, ask his son to come put a new inner tube on my bike. Cross Ludlow, past the mailbox on the corner, Risqué Video, Dino's Pizza, and the Emerald Laundromat. The fruit trucks tucked into 44th Street on the left, house eyes shut with boards, fringes of children. Once we went into a store sunk into the street, owned by a Cambodian woman. She sold everything, from evening gowns to soup. Over to Walnut and 45th, where the Muslim cat sells this chicken wrapped in pita, draped in cucumber sauce. The pregnant woman behind the counter writes our order out in Arabic. We grab a juice from the freezer, some chips, eye the bean and sweet potato pies. Back into the hot breath of West Philly, sun is setting. The sky is smeared squash, tangerines in a glaze. Three girls and one boy jump doubledutch. A white man hustles from the video store with a black plastic bag. We look for money in the street, steal flowers from the church lawn. The shit stain from the wino is still on our step. Mr. Jim is washing a car for cash. John is cleaning his rims to Buju Banton. Noel is talking sweetly to the big blue-eyed woman. Linda, on her way to the restaurant. The sister in the wheelchair buzzes by with her headphones on. One night, a man was shot and killed on this block, right outside our thick wood door. But not today. Today is one of those days to come home from walking in the world, leave the windows open, start a pot of black beans. Smoke some Alice Coltrane. Cut up some fruit, toenails. Hold on to the moment as if time is taking your blood pressure.

You know our office on the 18th floor of the Salmon Tower looks right out on the Empire State and it just happened we were there finishing up some late invoices on a new book that Saturday morning when a bomber roared through the mist and crashed flames poured from the windows into the drifting clouds and sirens screamed down in the streets below it was unearthly but you know the strangest thing we realized that none of us were much surprised be- cause we'd always known that those two paragons of progress sooner or later would per- form before our eyes this demon- stration of their true relationship.

I stopped at a red light on Mass. Ave. in Boston, a couple blocks away from the bridge, and a woman in a beat-up old Buick backed into me. Like, cranked her wheel, rammed right into my side. I drove a Chevy pickup truck. It being Boston, I got out of the car yelling, swearing at this woman, a little woman, whose first language was not English. But she lived and drove in Boston, too, so she knew, we both knew, that the thing to do is get out of the car, slam the door as hard as you fucking can and yell things like What the fuck were you thinking?You fucking blind?What the fuck is going on?Jesus Christ! So we swore at each other with perfect posture, unnaturally angled chins. I threw my arms around, sudden jerking motions with my whole arms, the backs of my hands toward where she had hit my truck. But she hadn't hit my truck. She hit the tire; no damage done. Her car was fine, too. We saw this while we were yelling, and then we were stuck. The next line in our little drama should have been Look at this fucking dent!I'm not paying for this shit.I'm calling the cops,lady. Maybe we'd throw in a You're in big trouble,sister, or I just hope for your sake there's nothing wrong with my fucking suspension, that sort of thing. But there was no fucking dent. There was nothing else for us to do. So I stopped yelling, and she looked at the tire she'd backed into, her little eyebrows pursed and worried. She was clearly in the wrong, I was enormous, and I'd been acting as if I'd like to hit her. So I said Well,there's nothing wrong with my car,nothing wrong with your car. . .are you OK? She nodded, and started to cry, so I put my arms around her and I held her, middle of the street, Mass. Ave., Boston, a couple blocks from the bridge. I hugged her, and I said We were scared,weren't we? and she nodded and we laughed.

Right now I'm sipping a mango lassi in Action Town. I'm not bereft at all. In fact, I'm pleasantly aware of people moving on all fours. Our voice and text messages will be erased in no time. When I walk into stores they call me Spark Plug because I have a sparky manner. Things get all wavy from their constant attention. It's going to be okay. I'm a good habit: you don't need to trick me. I'm not sure where I should put my hands when I walk down the street with you. It's funny to think about who I would call if something really awful happened. I'd be jumping up and down not knowing who to call. My way of doing things is scary even to me. Remember the toothbrush, the honey bear, and the meal that we thought would never end? I'm counting on you to come through high water, to come through chaos, and to Action Town, where we'll lift our aces to skyward aviation.

the park at noon in summer is a different city office workers on benches everyone squinting at their phones ten blocks from the office an entirely different world for forty-five minutes then back

My fire escape is the best room in the apartment no ceiling view of three other buildings my neighbor's herbs unofficial balcony absolutely worth it

The market at 6am the merchants arriving the lights coming on i was there for it unplanned, jetlagged, happy

From the street i can see into windows other people's lights other people's living rooms other people's tuesday evenings everyone looks okay from this distance