I CAN ONLY GO AS FAST AS THE GUY IN FRONT OF ME
Traffic once came to a halt to make room for a helicopter to land –
the accident was that bad – and I spent an hour making a deal
with God, singing like a new romantic. Another time, I finished
a book, though I started it weeks earlier in a window seat, waiting
for the plane to taxi down the runway. I always asked for more
money during the negotiations, and I always interrupted myself
to address an old love. Sometimes there’s an unfocused rant
that points a finger at the heart, sometimes there’s not enough
left in a pack to share, sometimes there’s a defense. I was born
during the Year of the Boar. On the second day, I learned how to pray
to my ancestors, and by the fifteenth, the night was cluttered
with lanterns: this is how a road gets made, this is how to begin
a war. In New Jersey, there are twists along Route 80 that catch you
completely off guard if your mind is wrapped around the deconstruction
of a kiss. You can park the car in Fort Lee and go the last mile
to the city by boat, struggling to strike a match, shivering a bit. I lived
with a view of Kaufman Astoria Studio and an old coffee pot
near the sink beneath a window. I could read the lips
of a couple in the apartment across the street, I could count
the number of cars at the light whenever I sat on the fire escape
and turned my head to the left. Remember the night we argued
over what to do next. We could have spent that time
talking about kinds of fruit and if there was one bruise poetry would not
embrace. We could have read to one another, we could have slept.
