this way please

this poem's an invitation
a welcome mat
the porch light's on
here's a hook for your hat

the door is open
the kettle plugged in
the strudel is cooling
anytime, we'll begin

chairs i have many
a few cushions too
everything's laundered
and waiting for you

be you fear, be you sorrow
be you many or few
the bramble's been trimmed
just make your way through

where i will be waiting
as still as the lake
i welcome you all
here, have some cake

new york

i love your garbage cans 
Bryant Park, your empty emerald bistro 
chairs, those flat heeled eight a.m. women
sucked into the spinning mouths of shiny buildings. 

i love your playlist of birdcall and jackhammering,
the same menu at Reggio's year after year,
and the Whitman quotes underfoot.
everyone calling me ma'am

your salty-fat two dollar pretzels impaled on coathangers
make me laugh. where did you get those
polite apologies at crowded crosswalks? LUV them!

oh, baby you were fabulous last night:
your Chrysler tip a zippo flame
over Grand Central's implacable facade.
thanks for your perspective, Pershing Square

i never knew how much i loved you, New York
until i watched Denzel Washington 
play Walter Younger on 47th where
Sidney Poitier played him on the same stage in '59

or until i sat here thinking about a pack 
of Nate Sherman cigarets bought around the corner 
in the life i had before this one

it took walking by the Grace building
to know it.

theft

amid the faintly glowing
frescoes and heavy notes
lingering in the organ pipes
we sat, unsure where
to look or place our hands
welcoming, an hour of
platitudes later, the stuffy interior
of the ancient family Valiant   

it's a gift to chose what's hard
i say, as we pull from the lot
arm outstretched through the
passenger window, waving at someone
who might be someone
i know or knew or looks it. i'd been
telling the twins nothing is worth more
than what's made with what's left,
and anything can be true
if you tell it enough.

until i spoke, we held the silence
like a sheet pulled from the line
waiting to see who led the folding
of sun-warmed cotton.
now in the shade of the carport
we decant from the two-tone car,
bare thighs carefully peeled from
the sticky upholstery.
in the unseen world, invisible hands
tie a black ribbon to a kite tail
of colourful bows marking every
other day lived up to today.

including one last week
we can't turn back to and unhear
how a knife tip found its way
to the bottom of Uncle Jack's heart
where everything that mattered was kept.
who's to know what was taken apart
from his life; what remained
in the looted wallet were a few coins,
a receipt from the hardware store
and a list that included
reasons for buying a new straw hat.

there's no better reason for grief
when that list includes
last hat until i die.