Sanctuary
Tonight I’m not sure what to write.
I’m full of delicate things,
thirsty for balmy words that love on me like rain in July-
the warm bottle of water at the bottom of my purse.
I love this street glowing green
under the gilded glare of the Pershing Square restaurant,
the grit on 41st Street,
as I race against traffic to find sanctuary.
Crowds of us
shoving away from each other,
Cell phones clutched in our fists like if we
just keep talking,
keep snapping photographs,
keep keep keeping on,
it’ll save us from the civil war of human touch.
An over saturation of stares
and everybody’s laughing
because it’s New York.
The land of confidence.
Vibrant dreams
pulsing like fireworks,
and children’s hearts simmering
just beneath our jaded glossy eyes.
I pass a girl in a pinstripe suit
Trembling,
saving face enough to keep
The money coming
For one more month in her five floor walk up.
I reach the path under the bridge,
going from the 60 of being swept up in the tides
flowing out of Grand Central,
to 0–silken breaths on the way to the bus.
I walk slow.
Exhaling the masked me
so eager to prove
I’m capable of flying.
All those pieces trickling down to the ground,
Boneless.
It is the end.
Nothing can break the sharp intoxication
of glowing
way up from the inside.
I live in lights that flicker with the moving sometimes,
like the man who sleeps beneath all of his clothes
under the glorious stars blazing in Times Square.
I’m tearing up.
I didn’t want to write about you tonight.
