The New Poem

I was hiding truths from myself I didn’t want to voice

but was starting to. My breath in morning against the living

room window as I collected the paper,

pushing out the thought of a letter opener, my hand

opening glued envelopes, and was otherwise

useless to the state department, the unified school district,

the city of NY, NY, standing under green scaffolding

waiting for something so simple

as rain. I followed the stream of thought

the city offered from the limited grass

and eyed people as they passed to turnstiles,

municipal parks, apartment buildings.

At the moving company, when I was younger,

I said I would lift with another man

a triple dresser, sleeper sofas, wrap whole houses

in packing paper for the dollar. I was afraid

there were luxuries I would never know

again: Cola-flavored lip balm, leather-jasmine

scented candles. All I wanted to be

was a vein blooming in an eagle’s eye,

for hours, an ox sleeping below a sill.

But I am young in my debt, and inexact in what I mean

when I say, I was lonely then, as I am now

standing in the foyers of paintings of landscapes,

abstract impressionism, Gothic architecture. This June

morning, I arrived in a heatwave to the city

thinking of what I am as I walked up the set of steps

through the double doors, and upstairs into lightness.