On the corner of Clinton and Atlantic, no one notices the dry lumps of
ash-colored gum that are conquering the sidewalk.
A husband and wife, lacking watches, argue over the time. They jut their chins away from their
chest-covered hearts and out towards each other.
Emerging from this dispute: a delicate gem of spittle,
landing on the back of a passing man's head,
he grins unknowingly as he squints at his wrist. Half past noon. He believes the woman walking just
ahead of him is a famous actress. He is wrong, but he will dance home on coiled springs and tell
everyone he knows about her...

My grandfather, impermeable, sits across from me.
He is excited by the Williamsburg Bridge, reality TV, and my father's touch among other
things.
He smiles in my direction: he thinks he's cracked the code.
"You're lucky you were born," he says. It's okay, he didn't mean it, he just chose the
wrong words for a different set of thoughts. Besides, I am still full of love, and
outside you can see the boats
asleep on the East River, their occupants stare back at me
and we try to read each other's thoughts...

The city birds sound like they are mocking us.
They sweep the churning air with their quivering feathers, somehow able to hear
each other over the pulsating sky,
over the two women down below bellowing, at each other's throats, not because
their cars have nearly collided but because
the city is too hot, the city is too vast, and their daughters may no longer love them...

There's a beautiful family in the skyscraper opposite to me. Every night, they prepare
piping hot vats of soup. The noodles
floating in the broth look like telephone lines.
After work one day, the father looks at books of art and
can't understand what it all means, but he is excited by the colors, amethyst,
crimson, olive....

Back on Atlantic and Clinton, they have finally figured out the time: we will live another
day.