Along First Avenue
houses line up
between what was and what is
boarded up windows
must lie in mere frames
where within light once streamed.

Traversing distance
in exponential leaves
commuters face the inexplicable
blocks of outlines compiled.
Fracturing venom and phloem back
stacked apartments.
Our supposed to senses distribute neural notions
Self-creating disconnections
in search of wonder only alone
in unknowing.

And yet I want to tell you
that this morning the sun rose
calm over the East River
though I did not see it
I know
it did

I wanted to say, “Colors
spread like only sky can,”
(but how afraid was I
laughed and said
something tangible instead
so the image in your head
would bear resemblance to what I see
to me—
though that image would
have nothing to do
with the joy of having seen it
or even you.
And then this pretense would be
simply what it seems—again.
But at least, alas, you will likely not
have disappeared).

Frames discolor and I cannot trace
the person whose memory has been erased
by a new layer of paint that comes and comes
with this continuance
—tan window frames on steely blue
color schemes old and new
inside which eyes have peered
out onto this scene for many years
the woman who sweeps
the same cement squares
past the Polish Deli, daily
kids recycle getting older
tailing rushed mothers
to a place that abducts trust
in the name of self-sufficience.

It rained earlier,
now it’s clear,
seasons never cease,
and I’m stuck
on the sky
in lieu of an explanation
to make me believe in this trek
up and back, up and back
making a journey
worthwhile to share.

The graffiti says snow
though it doesn’t often above subwayed tunnels.
When it gets too warm it rains the many individuals
never known.

Wonder must be collected,
kept, spreading itself before us
unsortable, in no need
of sorting.

A woman spits seeds into her palm.