[a] city in unison.

“this morning when I left Toronto, the rain was so romantic/ it felt like it wanted to kiss me.”   –Marina MArina.This is where it ends. Everything is still but your fingers. Save your lips for spines that are spider-webbed & ponder the gratuitous nature of posture. Your chords net the room into what could be the Brooklyn Bridge– an elevation of cinematic paces. Humans pose through silence and this day drips into our mouths like shared chocolate. We call this bitter because we may have eaten in the wrong order. The aftertaste could be cocoa or almonds or the apprehension of border crossing. All of this may be chewed with an ease of oxygen and coconut. Some things are just too heavy to place into palms. Mugs the color of men. Carved pumpkins and museum’d china. A song which is far too delicate to be called anything but the hum found in human. Spend a lifetime in search of the deepest, sturdiest spoon. Walk toward the wild ones. The hula hooper curving hips and diaphragm toward Blondie. Take in the noise of typewriter keys tonguing paper and carbon copied reminders of poems purchased on a day like Winter in Union Square. Interrupt a movie set and become and become. Eat peanut butter hidden inside of milk and dark shipped from a land-locked state further west. Notice the Autumn in her eyes on a packed subway and wonder how much each lash weighs and if you lifted weights with them, would you be buff like him. During the months in which we are (most) lost, an immigrant will find us, pick out each city-soaked splinter and bellow: staystaystay.

how to remain amidst the push.

In these parts, you may notice the aggressiveness of air quality. Those are a particular type of peanut roasting in the aroma of buttered honey. That is halal and those spices will dig their way into your belly and cause you to swoon for blocks. That is urine. This is cologne-covered-man and that is a gust of taxi pollution. What do you call that force of salt on twisted bread and I think that over there is a pizza truck where you may fall in love with the lust of real Italian sauce.

Here is this city, in this borough, breathe in. Forgot about the belligerence of food options. And sometimes the humans forget to bathe or simply cannot due to lack of water and tub. But make room for them. And sometimes the rain-drenched-concrete emits an aroma of sour and stun. Make room for that too.

If you get lost, follow the trail of bread crumbs and chicken wings before the pigeons pick them up. These lights color the air, creating a fragrance of rainbow and blind. And there is a scent to New York rubber, scratched tire wheels and bicycles bruised by potholes. None of this is deodorized.  Nothing is sterile here. Put away your anti-bacterial lotion; this city is meant to penetrate your nostrils and follow you home.