“Holy Bronx”
—Ginsberg
Even this Galleria Mall
bland, January calm,
winter comes in
flat as paint drying,
good paint, the fountains
in fake forestry cover
burbling, round pennies
on square tiles
in the basins, the whole
of the non-city freeze
shimmers on down
through skylights.
Even the rain taught
a lot of headspace,
and that is valuable
being on a subway
and next to you
people interested
in their own heads
as you were in yours,
hard and also like
a giant quilled pillow
pulled from Mayor Koch
or other giant bald guy.
Some kid who wanders
through the D trains
in a private strobe light
under the Concourse
decades ago changes
the space around him
by being that amped
in electric urine
and Poe Cottage.
Was that the young
Donald Revell? Maybe
empanada grease
and rooftop pigeons
breaking over
kids throwing rocks
far from Sarajevo
at bottles on a glacier
rock in the lease lot,
the fence top barbed
with backup mirrors,
fiery sunset behind
red Alexander’s sign,
the old man calling
you Papi, one hand
on the ice walker,
the other on his roach,
then grabbing hands,
old long finger horns
not letting go
until he inhaled
with a whoosh, you
funky ass upstate hick.
People who have
been really alone
have their charge.
Whatever comes
off their wires
goes into your wires,
who swayed between
cars you felt them
going from side
to side and never
stopped going
from side to side.
The whole world
changes, but I now
think how something
does not change at all.
The way people leave
bikes chained in front
of restaurants all night,
how amazing. And
the colors of the bikes
too. A toothpaste-
colored ten speed
city bike just leans
there with its wheels
still on it. How could
that be stable? It is t
hough, from that thing
that causes balance,
the inner ear, scrub
with no winter coat
pulling your pants up
darting to the market
which seems reasonable,
I mean real, concentrated,
face not bleedy, still okay.