and the Fury

Labored breathing, heavy limbs, I make my way across the avenues to test my abilities for errands. When I get there I’ve forgotten to bring my wallet. The east village is all Saturday morning sunshine, stretching and yawning along St Marks as the restaurants sweep sidewalks and set up chairs for the day. 

Crossing through Tompkins, I find myself reluctant to leave it, the steady murmur of people in joy, an open park bench. I sit down and find an abandoned copy of the Sound and the Fury. Within its pages, someone has circled, “She smelled like trees.” A man sits down next to me and I realize too late it is a storyteller long admired. We sit in silence in the sunshine. I never get the chance to tell him. Dogs in costume swell into the park for the Halloween Parade, New York is sunshine and smiles, a perfect October Saturday in a city that adores its own narratives, it would have been perfect with my hand in yours. Instead I took a slow run along the river and thought about a time before everything broke in us.

The city gives its gifts when you well and truly need them. A book on a park bench. A storyteller silent by your side. A long slow stride in sunshine the kind you used to take before everything broke. Your lungs burn in illness but no matter. 

When the gifts are given to you, you take them. 

Now it's on you to make something of the treasures you've unwrapped.