October 7, 2020

the moment passed
without much fanfare
of how long we’ve been living in NYC with
[rather than without]
a pandemic at our heels.

i thought it would feel different
but time hasn’t felt ‘natural’
since March.

the days pass in decades
and months are gone by the time you
open your eyes from a
blink.

it would have been
somewhere
around late July
and we’ve known more New York
within COVID
than out

and even if we track
for those weeks we stayed
preparing for the eventual move
and even if we track
for those weeks i visited
before knowing i’d ever
live here

let’s get all those weeks
out of the way
and add a buffer
and still

late September

and i’ve known more about COVID New York
Pandemic New York
Quarantine New York
than pre-any-of-this.

and yet
the whole effect of living in a place
in a quarantine
is that you don’t see the city
so maybe take out the days we were stuck inside?

but that’s more math than i’m willing to do right now
instead i’ll ask
has there really ever been a ‘real’ way
to live in
New York City?

September 20, 2020

there is a silence
in the country
in the backwoods
that unnerves me

any creak of the house
or wind in the trees
sends my anxiety rising to levels
far above those rustling leaves
simply because it is outside the norm

in the city, there is a collage of noises every night
and you never know where anything is coming from
and you just learn that it is part of the auditory landscape
and it lulls you to sleep, like a very unique kind of white noise machine
the lullaby of the city
of sirens
harmonizing with three different genres of music
blasting out of un-mufflered cars
and the steady hum of the downstairs bathroom fan
somehow melding into the far away helicopter
distorted by distance
and they all cacophonize
into one quiet whisper
of ‘you’re safe
you’re safe
you’re safe
now go to sleep’
and you sleep better than
you have in weeks

(it feels so good to be home)

July 7, half-heartedly edited July 21, 2020

On my rooftop I see:

1. a green tree across the street
2. a match to the folding chair under me
3. a pigeon, hopping on the next roof, its eyes as red as the
4. red brick apartment across the road
5. a treeline, it might be the park?
6. a metal fence, so I don’t fall off
7. this private rooftop terrace, that my privilege helped get me
8. satellite dishes from DirectTV
9. a/c units sticking out of 6th floor windows
10. clouds and a flash of what may be a rainbow
11. my rainbow hair blowing in the polluted wind
12. no sign nor sight of a way to make this poem end
13. sounds of busses, bodega music, wings flapping, construction; scents of the laundromat around the corner,
and wind, so much wind, against my face, feeling a chill on this hot New York afternoon, perhaps//

a loud boom, a bang, was it from the west or the east?
i strain my neck over the gate, and the only answer i see
is the smell of the garbage truck, stopped on my street.


i have so many unfinished poems written
but not the stomach to stomach the rereading.

July 21, 2020

last night there was a cockroach
poking its feelers out from it’s rooftop hideaway
and at night it caught me by the creeps

but today in the
afternoon brightness
complete with my coffee and sun hat
i’m not quite as creeped

and maybe that’s the lesson for today:
the despair from yesterday
can turn to creativity today
which maybe someday could develop into
flow[tomorrow]

January 24

there’s a feeling in the air
a crispness
but not a coldness
it’s almost 5pm and the sun still hasn’t set

yet

and i feel like this feeling is hope.

there’s music in my ears
music i’ve never listened to before
and if i wanted some obscure Asian cuisine
i just get off at a different stop
on this very subway train,

i’m not saying i’m wholly happy
nor that New York feels like home
quite yet

but

there’s a feeling in the air
and i feel
like this feeling

could

be

hope