Happiness Deli October 21, 2004

Amin is behind the counter,
gold teeth and long curly hair, a rockstar
mustache. Latin boys walk in, Amin says
hey, Frankie, mi amigo, como estas?
Frankie says, bien, bien, turkey hero. Amin makes
it for him. Cop walks in, says Ma’assalama,
Amin says Ma’assalama. The cop asks for some
more lessons on Mohammed, Amin explains
and Habib makes all the coffees. Old black man
walks in, says, what up, homes. Amin says,
hey, what up Holmes, ham sandwich tonight?
The man says, nah, Yankees lost. I can’t eat
tonight. Amin understands. Crazy schizo named
Lucky walks in, selling a radio from 1985. Ten bucks,
works and everything, he says. Amin tells him,
no man, thanks, we got radio here in Happiness.

Threading. July 6, 2004

Patching words into sentences into stories
we used to tell to make each other mad, now laughed
away with a wave of a wand of passed time. Tour buses
travel time up the Bowery, the farmland,
sprouting roses of brushed steel
and thumping bass, following the thread of electricity,
repeating clauses,
following frequencies of New York’s disease:
nostalgia. Things are always better in a
different time before me, and things will never
be better or worse than they are now. Things, we, them,
all living in the present tense. An undercurrent
plays connect-the-dots, watching recognition
light up the footlights of our
collective memory. We hold hands with strangers,
know they save our souls now; without resumes
or reason for trusting, we do so presently, here in
this bar this club this park this sidewalk this street this
vanity. We save each other from the men who would
otherwise pimp out our farms, our Bowerys in a
heartbeat. We hold hands with the angry and the
hurt, the hopeless and the apathetic, slashing
the tires of crusaders in their multinational
man-made machines of war. We are snickering in the dark
corners of what New York used to be, still is
in our present tense: corrupt and unclean and free
from the ordinary, still in some parts.
Wait for me. I will be here now, forever, without
knowing or willing. I will stand locking hands
with strangers: I will always choose to make
the better never end.

**poet’s note: y’all must read “Forever” by Pete Hamill.

How to kill fruit flies. June 24, 2004

3:15am:

A glass of vinegar and 2 drops
dishwashing soap
with a paper funnel on top
will kill swarms
in the humid rotten.
Preferring to crawl frantic
instead of fly, blind to
the aperture of escape.
One on the edge of the cupboard
hasn’t moved in twenty minutes.
Do fruit flies nap?
Would you nap if you only
lived ten days?
Fucker.
I knew once I got up
to get another cigarette,
he’d jump in.
Two or three fight
on the edge of the funnel
and fall. Dead.
Drag on a cigarette
as they sink.
I have dreams later
that survivors are pissed
and swarm me to death.
Stupid flies.