i wanna take the subway
i wanna take the train
to the end
of the
line

i wanna think
in anonymity

of how i see you
in the face of each
passing stranger
of how your breath sweeps over me
in the draft from
the black tunnel

i beg the calm silence of
time passing
to align my hopes
i hope the city can set me free
i hope it reminds me that although i am lost
i am unafraid

Summer sun on blue
Pungent roses fill the air
Honeybees approve

I’ve cried a lot over you
It was a nasty break up

When I left I said
We’re through
And
I’m never coming back

It’s been 18 years now
And I’ve seen and heard things about you
In the meantime

And I have to say
With no ill intent
That you have really let yourself go
I wasn’t prepared for this in coming back
It’s ironic because it’s why I left you

When I washed my hands of you
I consoled myself
With thinking
In fact
Knowing
That you were a *****
Who gave it up too easily
Or a monster like Frankenstein’s
Electrified on a table
Not quite dead
But not quite alive

A friend once said that you were
Always nicely coiffed
But walked about
With a long trail
of **** smeared toilet paper stuck
to the bottom of your superb shoe
Scraping under and behind
And unbeknownst to you

I’ve walked and walked
Everywhere
With a book
So as not to look
Crazy
And I’ve sat waiting
For you to appear
Suddenly

I’ve sniffed the air
For you
On this street and on that
Stalking you really
But you were gone.
I sat in that park for a long time

Washington Square
With my little book
After
One short story or two I closed the book
I left
There’s nothing here.
You’re gone.

The first time you made me stop
in my tracks completely
I was bewildered on First Avenue
heading south
It was long ago
Now I realize that it
was
a premonition
I was suddenly lost
I stared at the sign that read
K-I-E-V in neon to my left
I told myself
“You know where you are”
“You know exactly where are you are”
And in any event, keep heading south
“You know where you are.”

Upon my return
all these years later
it happened again on Canal
I stared hard at elderly Chinese couples
Hoping for eye contact
which I never got
Looking for an answer
An explanation
Their strategy for survival
Is this Co-Existence or a Time Loop gone WRONG?
How many of us are actually ghosts?
An old boyfriend told me once that they don’t like you.
And neither do the Poles.

“Is this the real life?”

I forgot until quite recently that
Not so long
afterwards
in Astor Place
I thought about you again
I thought that you must have moved over one block
West
But that’s just not possible.
It really is you.
This is you.

So casting you to the side
as I have done
As I had done
Will it help me at all?
Has it helped me at all!

Now I wonder if you are
a captive monster
rendered impotent
by steel and concrete?
Or a jammed low frequency
that dulls the mind
which Science won’t render mute?
Was it a healing potion
The perfect ratio
of
**** and **** and rage
That was
The Most Holy of Trinities?
Spurned and now this

If we made it again
A perfect batch
Could it re-start your heart and keep it
beating?
Like the Doctor in the stormy moonlight?

Do the tides help at all?
I don’t miss you if that’s what you’re thinking.