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.