Yesterday I looked up from the stained sidewalk
to see your reflection in Macy’s downtown window,
your red hooded wool cape tightly closed at the neck,
your long brown hair peeking out. I spun around,
hoping to catch you, hoping you’d catch me.

I guess I didn’t turn quickly enough.
You were gone, replaced by a group of tourists
gawking and mumbling about transient matters,
not noticing the bewildered man in their midst.

Crossing the Third Avenue bridge, I saw you
in a cab by yourself. You looked into my eyes
as you passed, then turned away without a smile.
Was that really you? Tell me that wasn’t you
turning away.

In the park I saw you helping a little girl fly her kite
higher and higher. I rushed to say I was sorry;
I touched a shoulder that wasn’t yours. “I’m so sorry,
I thought you were someone else,”
I effused as I backpedaled with my head down.

Last night without thinking I cooked grilled cheese
just the way you liked, chopping fresh basil into a pool
of olive oil, pressing it into the tomato slices before
rolling it in grated cheese. You would mash it all up
on the plate, and eat it with a fork and hug yourself
between each bite.

The leaves turned yellow and crimson on the Jersey Shore
last weekend. I went down to spend a couple of days with
Audrey. Remember how she used to flirt with me when the
three of us were together? You’d feign jealousy, knowing all
the while I never noticed anyone but you. She flirted with me
again. I quickly looked for you to admonish me, but you
weren’t there. Maybe I flirted back.

The snow will fall soon. Audrey has already asked me to go
with her to Stowe. We used to go there, you and I,
for long weekends. Sometimes we never made it to the slopes
to ski. In front of the fireplace, you’d play your guitar, singing
silly love songs while I kissed your neck and rubbed your shoulders.

I lie awake at night remembering how we’d fall asleep entangled
in each other, our legs twisting, arms roaming, fingers exploring
for the best place to rest. Our breath and hearts synchronizing,
tongues darting in and out, licking the other’s face. Always we tried
to climb inside the other to be safe, to be held, to be loved.

Some days go by and I have moments when I don’t think about you,
but they are so very few. Wherever you are, I send my love.

I’m an interloper to everyday life, born into a forgotten neighborhood lying on the other side of rusty tracks.

I’m among you standing toed to your metal gates, gazing up at life no longer expanding into possibilities. You know nothing of my existence, the possibility of me never intrudes into your consciousness.

Clanking metals resonate daily as men and women forging earth into blocks waiting for you to decide. Your hero’s and saints mean nothing to me, your weathered worship fallow of meaning, bereft of redemption.

My world built upon the backs of outsiders, those deprived ruthlessly of hope but who continue to suckle the emotions of breath like Dennis Kendall the guy who first told me I wasn’t cool as he grabbed me by the collar shoving me hard against a filthy brick wall, mindlessly cracking the cosmic prison my mind loitered in.

Or Marie Chanel who taking my hand led me past scattered trash into a narrow alley, and sensing my confusion whispered “it’s alright.” lighting a lustful spark she flushed my youth down a rusted drain initiating a collision of life and death I’d never hoped existed.

When the nights are cold these are the people I hold in my heart with sentimental desperation.

After our split we morphed into mere apparitions dismissed by the other with a turn of the head. No social foot prints were left for the other to discover, friends were enlisted as spies concocting elaborate cloak and dagger routines assuring we never went to the same party, never appeared at the same wedding the same book reading, until Halloween night that is.

I have no way of knowing if it occurred to Ellen not to show, it certainly had not occurred to me that my ex wife would be mingling with my guests like she’d never left me. But here she is dressed in a barmaid’s costume leather straps around her midriff lifting her breasts skyward earrings caressing her neck peaking out from beneath her cascading brunette mane. Once the center of our gatherings now she’s the center of my Halloween party.

Mingling her way through the crowd Ellen deftly moves toward me. I mingle in retreat from her advance, and for the briefest moment stop to catch my breath when fingers touch my neck then stroke my cheek. I turn and immediately tumble helplessly into her eyes.

Holding back hot tears welling behind my eyes, I’m unable to speak. Her  hazel eyes lock me in silent suspension, and in one motion acknowledging our dilemma she licks her finger then places its wetness upon my lips snakes her body against mine whispers in my ear “don’t talk”. My heart races the more her body leans against mine my hands encircle her waist looping fingers in leather straps yanking her hips into mine pressing into her  needing more. Barely moving we tug at each other aching to be closer oblivious to the guests, the muffle of a  trumpet player the only lifeline remaining.

Drawing a long deliberate breath as our lips finally touch I come alive savoring her taste in every pore of my body, shivers dance their way up and down my spine my head vibrates as if  touched by electricity tingling with desire back-lit with a deep reckless need for this woman.

Give and take, I touch you, you touch me. We dance around the room the only music a faint awareness of clinking glasses, laughing, talking and our own rhythm between us. My fingers explore her backbone diving into each crevice probing flesh muscle tendons for their connection to her. Ellen  plays the back of my neck her fingers creating wave after wave of  erotic shivers traveling through my entire body becoming euphoric pulses sealing her ownership of my will.

Garbing my elbow hard almost desperately Ellen maneuvers me into the loft’s bird cage her red blushed finger pushes hard upon the up button. Our hands scramble to touch the others face, kneading flesh deeply we linger lovingly as our fingers reach the crossroads seemingly for the first time. Aching to own the other aching to possess deeply, to shut off noise reminding us of the past. The elevator door opens reveling the empty bed we shared before we became  apparitions. We move into the room forgetting our phantom masks, forgetting each others pain while we give each what the other desires.

Tomorrow we’ll float apart like in a movie, now nobody feels any pain, just for now there are no roiling moments of regret inhabiting our lonely self’s, just for now all we need is love.

Dark metal edges welded together, endless flanges cutting my hands my knees as I crawl to to meet your demands. Hard surfaces surrounding me I can’t break though to you, I ask and ask the answer is always the same, be patient. Thorns of patience circle round my brow burrowing deeply beyond the blood.

I stand on a soapbox open and vulnerable scanning the horizon looking at my emotional destruction telling you what I feel letting you know I’ve opened my self to be what you said you wanted me to be, vulnerable . The more I open my self the more you push me away. I fracture my feeling allowing pain, horror and suffering to pour out warmly like cum between my fingers hoping you’ll do the same, but you don’t.

Road signs freshly painted every day, I travel going left then right watching out for pot holes that will break my heart. Surprised that avenues opened yesterday are today closed.

You can’t be afraid of me you’re in control, has my use, my amusement worn thin? Did my bending over disgust you? Maybe I should have spit in your face, instead  I told you I liked you, and you remained silent.

My exit blocked once again because you changed the rules. Rules upon rules that only you know. Please cut a hole in this curving maze built upon your tears and fears from a life way before I appeared. I’m not part of your past yet scorn is heaped up me, I open myself to receive your pain only to be told it’s not the time, not right now.

I can’t crawl out from beneath this hideous weight of sharing my naked self only to be all alone the same as I was when we started. In the beginning you told me I was one of many and I needed to give you what you wanted or I’d fall down the list, smiling I acquiesced thinking you played, but now I know you were serious. The rules keeping changing, stretching into grotesque reflections in a cracked mirror, barely readable even by the one who wrote them.

For a moment I’d forget who I was as I bent and slithered to meet your needs dancing as fast as I could hoping against hope I’d amuse you to distraction painting a smile upon your tortured self but it was not to be. I became but hallow and shadow like as I meandered through each day waiting for you to acknowledge me waiting for you to smile in my direction.

Cut and bleeding through every pour yet once again I’m awake and remembering who I am. I’m awake and though I sit with broken heart I see a deep amusement growing within and with that I thank you for all I’m feeling from opening myself to you.

Each foot vanishes in newly fallen snow only to reappear as I exchange left for right.

Nothing stirs. Birds and squirrels normally scampering and chirping on the edges of my walk, have disappeared.

Swinging arms and exaggerated puffing of the daily runners I often pass, are absent.

The slightly wobbly bicycles zooming by with colorful plastic helmets, are missing.

The most noticeable sound is not a sound at all but, quiet.

The quiet engulfs my thoughts while reluctantly acknowledging the pedestrian squishing of my boots.

The quiet itself is disquieting, but once accepted becomes a companion gently ushering me along.

“nobody watching

in this moment,

coffee warmth.”

Freshly fallen snow casts your footprints, left then right you trudge toward yellowish glowing windows of the coffee shop. Windows outlined in translucent iced frosting. The expansive silence broken by muffled squeaking falling off your knobby boots. Hand on door you enter to chatter rising from small islands of conversation.

Sitting at a corner table you realize nobody looked up when you entered, nobody watched you order and pickup your cup of black coffee, walk the unending steps to a corner table and sit. Nobody watched.

In this moment with nobody watching, coffee warmth.

Save

Save

“Snowflakes
drift to earth,
silence blankets
sound.”

Washthebowl

“A snowy afternoon
by myself,
lost in errant
thought.”

Washthebowl

It gnaws at me, the stagnant air. And I chew at it, hoping to lessen it’s weight pressing upon me, surrounding me, scrubbing my unconsciousness sores till even casual onlookers can see resentment tattooed on my face. And believe me they’re looking, some even ogling as I pass by on my walk, to I don’t know where.

existing this moment upon unforgiving sidewalks

rolled out concrete ribbons continuously

rising up to slap me with loneliness, sucking life

from me with radiating hot damp heavy air.

feelings confined by bounding brick limestone soaring high.

desperately I tug at my wandering imagination

before traveling down naked alleys.

proposing marriage to empty gutters, begging not to be swallowed.

lost in a city far from anything I know.

As I walk the uneven concrete sidewalk I seek solace in repetitively thinking lemon aid, thinking iced tea, thinking cold cold water but thoughts have no power to banish the stagnant air’s hold on me. I’m coming apart at the seams and any help there may have been has long ago disappeared behind windows painted black, to hide the coolness.

motherless children spit edgy breast puffing obscenities as I pass.

pitiful birch trees pretending to mellow,

but instead crack the sidewalks.

agitated passengers crawling from underground into

caverned facades their self esteem exposing open sores.

red canopies shade gin soaked dwellers

remarking to themselves how foreign I look.

I walk, pissing tears conjugating bits of memory

pressing toward something I don’t know.

haunting beautiful girls and boys turn away

busy building neurotic walls.

vendors close doors pretending to nap.

no white clapboards with green shutters pointing the way home,

no hula hoops nor backyard picnics inviting me to leave my troubles.

no cool night air giving me dreams of lost touches and gentle kisses.

As I squeezed the plastic bottle mustard escaped with a slurpy gurgle then dribbled a wavy yellow stream onto the hot dog cradled in my right hand. I stared absentmindedly as the yellow covered the hot dog overflowed onto the bun and finally smothered my fingers. “Damn” I cursed, and only then did I stop squeezing.

Irritated, I looked down at the red and white table cloth covering the picnic table and grabbed a handful of loose paper towels with my free hand, quickly winding the towels around the dripping yellow mess.

With my hands entombed in flowered paper I walked to the garbage container mumbling under my breath an apology for the mess I’d made, tossed the hot dog and headed back for another.

“Going to give it another try?” asked the vendor. “You bet,” I said “but make it two dogs this time with extra sour-kraut and yellow mustard.” The vendor deftly assembled my order and as he squeezed the salty yellow mustard on top I detected a glint in his eye.

I slid down against a big maple and took a huge bite from one of the hot dogs, my cheeks grimaced, my lips pulled back in exaggeration as the tangy mustard filled my mouth. Anyone watching would have seen my shoulders lift toward my ears and my whole body briefly shake, this is what I’d hoped for, a nostalgic reaction to the river of mustard painting the inside of my mouth and sliding down my throat.

Speaking in low tones I summoned a childhood moment, a memory of my leaning hard against a seawall and awakening one summer not all that far away. Breakfast that morning was a hot dog overflowing with mustard. Curiously the oceans crashing roar mixed with the cries of the gulls came flooding back sitting under the maple. I Licked the last of the mustard from my lips.

From beneath my brown sweater I uncurled my white stiletto fingers exposing them to the sun hovering a few hours past sunrise and inhaled deeply ocean air filled with spritz. I looked around and seeing no one I genuflected toward the morning and laid my fingers atop a thin layer of moisture glistening on the concrete seawall.

“This is my altar, I am the priest celebrating my awakening” I said for anyone to hear. And then leaned into the wall’s coldness, my face knotted in furrows as a brief shiver moved up my arms. Gazing far across the Atlantic as gulls rode morning currents and my eyes followed their effortless play while rhythmically I sagged into and then away from the damp seawall.

Suddenly my memory dissolved, I was interrupted by a hand on my shoulder. “Where are you?” Tina asked while tightening her grip. “I was just remembering the morning after our first night together,” I responded without turning to look. “Want to eat?” she asked, “How about a couple of hot dogs” I said as I reached up to grab her hand…