Penser

I think at first the silence will scare me

into wallowing in the has-beens

and yearning for wine on the rooftop

that flirts with the water

and poses a fantasy in a would-be train car

with battered curtains

where once Mayhem had brunch next to me

and a tiny turtle peed in a cardboard box,

(seemed rather hilarious

after 4 bloody marys).

I think at first the silence will scare me

into yearning for the 1 AM

ambulance sirens blipping

(they rock me to sleep)

to create a space up first avenue --

perhaps I will be taken aback

by the smell of grass

and the knowledge of warmth

that isn’t tainted by swirls of snow

and is kept at bay with a sweater

(how ridiculous to yearn for a siren).

And I think I will have to remember

that small talk doesn’t have to have an agenda

(it can be meant in total kindness)

and I think I might not miss, but will always worry

about the women wailing in the subway,

the one I try to help by keeping Kind bars in my purse

and the one arrested on the platform

barred from help by the man in a blue uniform

bearing the initials NYPD.

I think I will miss the 22-year-old

who moved to the West Village

in pursuit of a particular kind of life

that she had been told looked nice,

but so sadly discovered didn’t fit,

and I will miss this girl

who desperately loved

and still clings occasionally,

this woman who came of age

in the city that never sleeps,

rocked by sirens

and drunken screams.

I am searching for footholds

in a circle of niceties,

jagged lines of a cat scratch

connecting the dots,

I stand at 1 AM

in the living room that never

quite felt mine,

staring out paned glass doors

up first avenue

and I become a moving taxi

and if I look a certain way

I can move forever 

up that singular avenue

that becomes and stays

a ribbon of abyss…

or I can sleep

and dream of a town

that smells like grass

and enfolds me in the silence

filled with the noise of my future.