East Village

I was waiting for you to call or

keeping the flies from crawling through

the crack between

the screen and the window.

It’s always something

trying to get in.

I don’t know what I believe anymore

but God is a good place to start

when the city is so beautiful,

when the gunshots sound like drumming.

It isn’t hope as much as settling into the forever

of a dream life

where people are the color of their light.

Faces lit up electric

or dull dirty as their money.

It is easy to forget it all for a bike ride

at the first fist in a glass door,

this violence is gentle

and I was always a lady in brick

waiting for the walls to

undress themselves more

until we were all comfortable

waiting for God to whisper through the keyhole

forgetting the cord in the rain

late at night

I could hear it hissing

it’s always something

trying to get in,

it’s always the city blocks

cracked into body shaped pieces

or a silent phone

on the couch late at night

it’s always the kids who didn’t show up

to anywhere

when the sky

let its stars

fall into the east river.