Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there

Bowing around spilled coffee
A wife can't be your life
But isn't it decisively so?
The beats,
I –
I don't –
Did you –
Last Wednesday –
A senior citizen rolls a ninja turtle carry-on, in front of the cafe.
We all laugh, the British girls and me...
She moves fast, onward with precocious vigor
Turns the corner, and it's only me again.
Before now it was us and them.
I feel separated,
my jaguar walking stick
leans into the crook of this wooden storefront bench
And the red woman struts by
Like it's the same old scene
Whether I am offered
Or it’s said; here,
have one more cup of coffee
before you go.

I'll argue that my desk feels snugger than a pantsuit.

The smoker walks by,
that's it. I've had it.

Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there

Baal drapes across my eyelids like Lou Reed's eye-shadow,
or in Hindi - It's just hair.

I'm walking home
thinking about 1984,
about the albums,
the drugs, the disciples
across the bowery –
spirits who stayed,
lusting as they lingered

If we were Live! in Italy,
what would our critics have said?

Knowing isn't enough,
a presence to be felt,
like Cobain reading Burroughs,
like electric teeth swindling sounds
an awe of narratives
a guitar's gallant gentry.
blood flowing on a winter's day
in the southern border, to a city
where they gathered that day
to listen in on a boy, spoken without words
beeps, would they suffice?

Suddenly I turned around and she was standing there

polly-polly
wanted no cracker
but poli-
tician
tried to grab her

Milk studded and iron born.
I said seven thousand times
as bright as a dawn's eerily light.