New York on the first day of a new season
sky rejoicing with a spectral azure clarity
city’s block exoskeleton groping up with spired fingers
these nimble bands of metal glinting in unobstructed sun

What mad movements lurk under your dermatological shell
little cellular flourishes pumped out to your limbs,
oxygen evacuated and spent, depleted bodies plunged back under
doing their mindless little dances, somehow replenishing
rebirthing, passing on down the proper steps for the samba
so we get the continuity of this new earthly turn
sun above the city, shade on its streets

~

How do you not lose yourself in this city,
become one more cog of the ideal?
It’s a cult, a religion, something bigger pieced together
You’re faceless here in such reassuring anonymity
either you give your heart to New York or you can’t
either you’re immersed under her current
or you float above it, skim the whole place
feeling like a widower at a wedding;
you’re missing some resplendent transcendence
the rest of the world is in on

But really, it’s no different than a novel, is it?
Just another one of our buildings, meant to be home,
another level of reasoning, of purpose.
Bigger, sure, certainly brawnier
but maybe no more truthful or reflexive
Just another collection of steel and glass,
billboards shining into the night,
people searching, sleeping, searching again