|
July |
July
1
There was a time she made
escape the tunnels and concrete—
timed subway trains run like oil
Hot hot
as ice on her two front teeth,
always
too sensitive for apples,
too
white for the crisp, broken
downed bodies crawling
sticky through tunneled walls.
She would say,
“Say! It’s another day in paradise.”
2
A shoe claps Shalom! Shalom! in Yiddish New York
City, New England, but old American’s
fiddle with rooks and Queens
and China Town is a desert
of swinging chickens,
which way is up? Which way is down-
town where the poets live comfortably—
a pen and a cracker, some Wednesday afternoon delight,
and also at night.
3
What is love,
love, love
Lennon and linen,
Shalom and bed inns—
Roger once said that from the springing speaker
of a cop car—how does one Roger some-
thing? There
was a time she’d laugh with herself—
now it is a roll of the eyes—it is a rubbing shoulders
with strangers—it is a time to go home with the city
all over crimson
and clover, over and over.
copyright 2013
Betsy
Burke |
