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]

June 25

in the morning
a downpour
hair soaked
from under a hood
in seconds as we
rush across the same street twice
trying to predict our Lyft driver’s
street familiarity

in the afternoon
too hot
for anyone’s comfort

(and we thought the rain would cool the city off)

in the evening
a hella-queer rooftop concert
as the sun sets
lavender
and
baby blue
over the NYC skyline