Midtown Triptych

Broadway past Lincoln Center and the wind is up so seems to speak saw you through the glass standing in line I swear a quiver played on your lips you were leafing through his book… —years it’s been years since Corona Heights, backing into him: dribble, hook, swish… …that beige comfy couch, sipping a stem of wine, his cat in my lap * * * The Townhouse Saturday night—shoulder to shoulder pushing toward the piano he stops to squeeze by; his eyes  mine clench  unclench… …What was it we found in common over drink   smoke   talk? A college campus —his son, his daughter * * * Earlier that night I rose to the city’s surface steam through the grate, crossed crossed again down 7th past Carnegie Hall, the greek joint as imagined, chic —unlike the shirt D wore (the fur of his arms) at Castro and Market waiting for the light: words were struck like steel and flint that distant August day…Then his visit to Spain, mine to New Canaan—walking through the Morgan with him. And what our mouths unfurled across a table of olives years later—last night… Dropping me off at 58th he reaches for the door I’m fumbling to open, leans close and plants what I’ve missed all these years