Things in Do in New York City (# 2)

To call it dark, would not be enough. A campsite at 3am after all the wood has burned and the stars have shut their eyes. Lungs, after a lifetime with nicotine. Or meat left on a flame, forgotten due to a lover’s quarrel. That dark. The pigeon led me down to where the rats grow old, to where humans learn new ways to be human. The mole people. The subway shadows. Where garbage grows wings, fluttering over the tracks like ghosts. Here, we gathered to share one slice of New York City pizza together. Cheese congealed after waiting too long–slowed down by the other: short legs of humans, lack of wings on I. As we gathered up calories, we spoke in languages neither of us shared, on all the ways we’ve loved before. Seventeen times for me, and only once by this pigeon, unrequited and undisturbed. Towards a letter it once carried. Many, many years ago,

List of Things to Do in New York City

1. Tango with Basquiat’s ghost
2. Eat pizza with a pigeon below West 4th Street, where the rats grow old, and swap stories of all the times we’ve fallen in love
3. Grow a garden of nasturtiums on a rooftop belonging to someone I’ve never met before
4. Learn Spanish
5. Learn French
6. Dig a hole somewhere in Prospect Park and plant love poems
7. Crash a movie set
8. Go to the library and read as many books as I can in one day
9. Fall asleep beneath a cloud shaped as Manhattan
10. Greenwood Cemetery. Find Basquiat. Dance with him one more time