JFK

Mountains upon mountains, dry desert sands and wrinkles in the ground, you know the land beneath you like you know the map of your own skin. The sun sets quietly behind you as the plane races into night, back to home. You read Anaïs Nin and contemplate New York concrete in summer, the touch of strangers. Delight in the freckles forming along your arms, but that is the only remnant of the west coast you want to retain. Let the rest wash off in the night. 

Tomorrow you will wake up to he sounds of Second avenue, and if ever it angered you before, you will smile at it now and all will be forgiven. Manhattan spreads out beneath you like a beloved friend. Whispers of a million mornings in its embrace. Of a million nights when you may rest. 

Sleight

West Hollywood in March lies quiet at the edge of the hills. Calm oases of palm trees and rose bushes at every corner, slight inclines and roaring intersections. I ran blind through the neighborhood and landed sweating at the gate sooner than expected but my veins still pumping like mad. You wonder what it is you are trying to catch. 

I stepped onto the beach, later, and even the cool ocean breeze couldn't keep me from smiling into the afternoon. The water was cool, but smelled of salt, and it pulled at me just the way it does in my dreams: I dove in and let it promise me the world. There's still sand on my skin though I showered after we came home. I believe it may just be metaphorical. 

Runyon

People seem lighter here, smiles come quicker, the sun shines brighter. Mountains after mountains, all lush, green, thick with satisfaction. Your pale skin flushes by mid day. 

You wonder who you are, really. 

Virgin

Jamaica, Queens, passes in a rush, terminals disappear behind you until you are unearthed in the clear, crisp space of JFK in the afternoon. Go through the motions, feel the knot around your spine relax, come home. 

There's a small space, a few hours across, where you are weightless. You try to take deep breaths, try to see the sun set over the Pacific Ocean in your mind. Your heart is heavy, but you will yourself to believe it will pass. Tomorrow you will wake up in a different land. Decide what should fit in your baggage. 

Bread

Oh how you tumble and fall. How the humid south whispers to you of wrap around porches and simpler lives, you dive head first into a lifestyle you can never absorb into your skin and it wears at your long-nursed ambition. Your father calls from a basement in the homeland, sharing images of a life you stored for future use, but that the future quickly bypassed. You cannot let it go, but you have no space to keep it. Your history bleeds out into recycling bins and second hand stores, and you are powerless to save it. Your present seems a week plant onto which to grasp: no roots, no solid branches onto which to hang your swing, no fresh sprigs when spring reappears on which to plant your hope. You are without a story.

The sun shines bright on this end of the Vernal Equinox, but the wind is cold, still.

You fear it is fresh air blowing through your tumbleweed shell, and nothing more.

Jumble

Spring continues, unabated, undeterred by its naive youth. The streets flood with people, as though it were never any other way and you strain to remember solitude. No matter. Spring does what it always does with you, clearing cobwebs and scratching at molting skin to make way for new shoots. The sunlight creeps into your reserves, as you take stock of your life and what you may yet make of it. 

I took the train to Queens to watch the baby grow, Saturday tourists and the train running local but I couldn't help savoring the minutes spent rocking through the New York underground, like some zen entity at peace with the equilibrium and unfazed by the terrors that lie just outside the bubble. Whatever happens next, you made it this far. When you step off this train and climb to the surface, the sun will be shining. 

Pawn

I smiled today, a deep smile that started in my toes, twisted and curled its way upwards through my body, expanded in my chest and flushed my cheeks, I looked strangers in the eyes and let myself beam at them. Union Square was awash with sunlight, with summery warmth and rows of faces, the farmer's market buzzing with traffic. Spring ran like a mad hatter inside me and the giggle lasted all day.

It returns
It returns
You'll remember 
soon
what it is 
to live. 

Hello

I know it before I've opened my eyes. There's a difference in the way the light hits my bedroom curtains. I see it before I've even stepped out on the stoop -- something in the light gait of people in the street below. Spring has hit the city like a tidal wave, dancing into every nook and reviving even the dustiest of corners. On the fourth floor of the bookstore, someone has opened a window, like the tiniest rebellion. I sit in the park for a minute before resigning myself to the workday ahead. A man walks by with five dogs in a jumble. Everything's different. 

We're okay. 

Measures

The last of the cold seems to pass in a heavy sigh. Sunlight floods our dirty windows. There's a pot in the corner, where hopeful sprouts shoot into the ether. I ran along the river, the sun had just set though it was evening, and the air was mild. Scores of runners, out from hibernation no doubt, ran like calves let out to pasture, all mismatched socks and spastic limbs. The streets smelled like New York again, everything returns. I cling to weather forecasts like life rafts. Did we make it out alive? I'm not ready to look back and survey the damage just yet. 

But give me a minute, 

and at least I might open my eyes.