Brooklyn

Wires cross & re-cross:

one bruise covers another.

Pigeons & sky washed-

out grey. The weight

of a minute creases

the back of the neck.

The movement towards zero

tucked into the center.

Fog on the window

expecting a new day,

expecting warm breath

& the pressure of a fingertip

drawing a circle.

Or the movement away.

Repeating to repeat.

The arc of a hand—

gentle wave, slight turn.

Leaves twist in the wind,

brush across sidewalk.

Edges unfold, smudge out

with the brush of a thumb.

Young Professionals in the Rain

If time had chosen a different way.

If every mistake disappeared.

The radio tuned to storm & static.

Here is an elegy for the tide

that doesn’t rise, for our months lost at sea,

a map of shipwrecks & desire,

the fold of an envelope, a paper cut.

Science now believes we each have

our own special place for keeping.

We each have our own word for loneliness.

No one saw what was stolen,

scars rising from skin.

No one can taste the poison in the water

but we know it’s there. We know

no other way. In science there is nothing

to hold on to. The smooth rock

in my pocket, a body.

In motion or looking to rest.

No one saw the weather report

or pretended to know the rain won’t stop.

The storm returns to memory.

The young professionals in the rain,

going to work in the latest watches,

waiting for something to love, to blow up

in their faces. To believe in a kind of

perfection only a child can believe in.