the city;
small poems, tiny narratives
introduction
the following are collected thoughts on life in the city. there is little more to say than that– each offers a little idea about life here. some are personal, others general. may they present a modicum of insight into my city.
anatomy
sometimes the city thrums with energy coursing like a heartbeat
others its ventricles are dry and empty, movement purposeless through unfeeling streets
hunger
i never thought my fridge was exceptional until i saw their faces glow in the blast of cold fluorescent air, devouring the fullness with their eyes.
a sparse cabinet was something i had never seen in my family but when i visited their houses i could see the back of their freezers and each meal seemed to drain their kitchens bit by bit.
the city doesn’t live only like me. i had never known.
condition
you learn early and fast in the city to never make eye contact with crazy people,
the ones begging or yelling or dozing under blackened blankets.
it becomes very easy not to look but sometimes you slip and see the scariest thing staring back.
a human.
just like you.
rest
outside the city sirens are a rare occurrence.
here they are a strange lullaby, wailing in the night that recalls how life goes on out there and remains tenuous and worth a flashing shrieking chase.
unadorned
i saw a baby in a carriage holding onto a pole in the subway car. the city teaches quickly the importance of a firm grip.
little glowing friend
i never walk the city streets alone because the walk sign man looks after me, keeping cars at bay and shining as beacon for whatever my destination may, always barely beyond my block.
transience
imagine the subway tunnels when the system dies.
when you ride it can feel like the mta will endure forever
but when the city is no more picture the empty labyrinth we will leave behind.
perhaps it will fill with water once the ice caps vanish
or be reclaimed by roots and dirt and creatures.
the screeching rails seethe with life now but when they die
something must follow.
erosion
the hills of harlem are like vertebrae of manhattan
a skeleton of this being that has been reshaped so much.
grown and trimmed and remade the city keeps the merest outcroppings
remembering something of the rawness of forests and and untamed landmass.
before anyone and everyone rolled the hills of harlem
and here they stay even as we and time stomp through.
espresso
i made change for a ticket at breakfast time that came to over one hundred dollars.
who are these people who spend a week’s worth of my pay on a single meal?
at my bitterest, the city can feel like a playground for people with bank accounts that leave room for fancy dinners and luxe shopping. people whose budgets aren’t strained by a monthly metro card.
then i see a child whose shoes are held together with tape placed conservingly and with skillful engineering on the fraying edges of a new investment their family cannot make.
who am i to own several pairs of whole, unbroken shoes?
no one perspective of class describes the strata we are divided into. the city’s hierarchy would take numerous 3d math models to even begin to explore.
i am a tiny piece.
trite and true
a seat on a crowded subway is sweeter than cab fare
memorial
history lies below like a mountain we’ve climbed
and the weight of possibilities of the city hangs over head
every story i tell about the city, i want to begin with a disclaimer
because odds are it has already been told here over and again
alberqueque
i was not in manhattan during 9/11. my memory of it comes from a magazine cover on our bath room floor months after that september, showing the fiery collision that stopped the center of the universe totally still. it may as well not have happened as far as 6 year old lily was concerned though now i can still sense the aftershocks of the shattering event.
i cannot imagine being here when the towers fell. the city i love, the lives lost, the terror.
when we moved back after the 9 months my family was gone, my mother took a job in the empire state building. not a day passed that i did not think about the fall of the world trade center and flinch to imagine my mother would fall next.
// //
crosswalks are merely suggestions to many who dwell in the city
fairy trails
my sister and i used to climb the hill beside the cloisters museum in the truly underrated glory of inwood hill park. the real, beaten path went its way curvingly up the hill but we never paid much attention to its bounds memorized by many walks.
all our attention was on the fairy trails that danced through the almost-wild thickets alongside the path. there was no doubt in our minds that the tiny stone steps, the illogical and miniscule twirls of homemade byways were made by little fey who lived in this park just beyond our eyes.
we told stories about them, how their lives worked and how they governed their parallel world, feeling we could sense them flitting at the very edges of our perception. sometimes we gathered acorns, twigs, and leaves to make offerings and i could imagine their whispers and giggling dances.
this little corner of the city that felt like it could belong to a beyond. it was already an oasis in a wild borough and the universe we made let it seem even more like it could be ours, mine and my sisters.
it occurs to me now that this exposure to nature shouldn’t be taken for granted on an island like manhattan.
fossils
the black spots on the sidewalk were once gum
brass
when my father was young in the city, he would rollerblade everywhere.
breakneck speeds with french horn strapped to his back like an orchestral thunderbolt. through central park, across avenues. i can only hope he was wearing a helmet.
in the eighties things were different here. manhattan was the kind of place that had areas you should never go at night. times square was a seedy, brothel filled corridor of drug dealers. some how it is now tourist disney land.
void
i know no loneliness like the kind you feel in the city
packed in with humanity and feeling as though you are some cold distant star
burning out slowly unseen by people.
or like tight dark bulb radiating the inky blackness into the warm light the flood of the incandescent life around you.
the skyline doesn’t excite or entice but looks like blades slicing the sky.
the sidewalks are cold and their cracks could swallow you.
my father lived in a city very unlike my own. rougher perhaps. maybe more vibrant. as ever, deeply complex.
kiss
spring breezes are like the tenderest brush of sensation as they break the warming stillness of air heated by the city and its glass and asphalt oven.
49
i moved alone today to a new space. dragging all of my things and struggling clearly
several strangers, future neighbors, came and helped me unbidden
different times and different people all assisted
the sweatiest reddest person in the whole world lug her things to a tiny apartment.
thank you.
whose
we all live in different cities that happen to share a geographic location.
the city i live in is not yours or theirs and your city can’t be long to me
because the streets have different pet names to you
and your subway lines have other tales. even the history of your city
will never match mine because our eyes and lives may look and occur in the same place
yet we are not in the same city.
i can peek into yours and you mine as we exchange legends of mta battles
recall the corners that counted in out sagas
share and richen the cities we coexist in.
my city. your city. belonging to each of us?
