Subway Ride to the Village

so we took that     a train back
the window glass to remember explanations
so the subway     the way up from down
the din and the clash of streets defined by love

car seat of dream     the ocean its own beach
lest i knew the twentieth century
large romantic man in his forties singing love songs from car to car
best museum in new york

	god and his characters
	let’s try that one again now
	a subway ride where they’d never considered it
	remove the tape from the package
	i’ll have sparrows in my ears
	and a new pastrami sandwich and egg cream for you

from Yew Nork (2014)

The Brilliant Delusion

next morning    the only hint of the flight face cards
the friend down the hall flew open for breakfast
an impulse that descended into the eternal fire
on the other side of the door     furnace of anyone
each car that goes by adds smoke to it

i used to like driving those things
well over one hand long
heat like weather     ace break
the face above the fireplace its smoke-heightened smile
mouth open the heat of his words the cool never betraying him

purely this one he’d pulled from mid-deck
it’s less bad being young than not being yet
slack     furnace-jawed in adolescent memory
its shadow forming a coat of mink of the ash around him
	all now it’s like a free fall from heaven
inhale their fumes wonder if his breath’s been excluded
the adolescent lung pressure     middle-aged jailsuit breakdown
as each ash presses another hot year into fur
furnace door toothed and open
	i wonder what fire
	flames from the card
	he thinks he’s drawn
this time

from Yew Nork (2014)

This Town That Glows

this town i see in my dreams
is a town of penthouses and subway stations
steel and glass houses glowing by night
lightning you can sense with your eyes closed

the women i dreamed of sleeping with in college
are all gathered in the college library
all in their teens and twenties     reading to each other
from the books that will be written by their grandchildren

	dreams in this town are things of fever
	demon lovers     their backs turned to the banality
	of the stolid background of the merely physical

	if they’d reappear as trains in the subway of my gut
	or confess to having loved me or even someone like me
	i could levitate in the night     through the unsighted emptiness

from Yew Nork (2014)