The subway is by far

My favorite place for writing.

Global earthquake:

The greatest ever!

Your elderly father needs

Around-the-clock care.

Stop smoking

Before your kids start

What’s new?

Less mystery

GETTHISBOOK.COM.

I will miss the A

When I move to Brooklyn.

The long ride

Between 125^th and 59^th

Enough for a whole

Soft Machine song.

And I will miss everything

About this City
That once terrified me

Sidewalk BBQs

Hello Mama

Hello Pretty Lady

Your business is appreciated

The obnoxious Ice Cream truck

When many years from now

I’m riding horses in Wyoming

Or growing mangoes in Hawaii.

At the BBQ I drank too much rosé.

At parties like this I remember

that I’m not a social person.

It dawns on me abruptly

like when I realize 

I left my glasses on the bench.

I did that so many times yesterday

I’m surprised you didn’t leave.

Waiting in front of the elevator’s door

I usually stare at the fallout shelter sign

but never think about it.

Today I did though

because of an article I read.

The government knew very well

that shelters were a total scam

but 

keep calm

carry on

pack another can

of pinto beans.

I’m out for a run in the sun.

Coming back

through the back door

I meet the super of my building

taking out the trash.

Can I ask you a question?

he says

Sure.

Why are you TOO beautiful?

Considering that my face is red

and I’m covered in sweat,

my hair a tangled mess,

I feel sincerely moved.

I smile very wide.

No, I really want to know! 

he says.

Well. I’m Italian.

He doesn’t look convinced.

I could have told him

that I don’t eat meat

and I don’t have a job I hate

or any, in fact.

Today is my last day of work

at the best papermaking studio

in America

and I can’t go gentle into the night.

As I am getting changed,

everybody leaves,

and I get locked inside. 

I try to get out,

the alarm goes off.

I imagine the police

storming in

tying me up

hopefully saying

something ridiculous

that I will later use in a poem.

I call my boss.

She doesn’t answer.

Her voicemail is full.

As I wait I read the notes

I received today.

I will show them to the officer.

Please, don’t hurt me.

Somebody

somewhere

loves me.

I feel thankful

for having been spared

from knowing my future.

The picture of all those

ups and downs

(falling in

and out of love,

the exhilaration

of moving to a new country,

and then a new city,

and then a new neighborhood,

seeing myself as better

than my father,

then realizing

I am him,

the same silly mind,

the same inconstant fire)

would have been incomprehensible.

The doing of a trickster God.

But day by day,

Matthew would say

this feels like normal.

It’s like making pesto in the Spring

and waking up to the kiss of a lover.

I am so full of forgiveness:

nobody did

anything wrong.

I’ll stop feeding demons

that aren’t even sexy.

I refuse to compete,

I am stomping my feet,

I am 131 years old.

Pretty young for an elf,

and ready to meet

his new girl

because 

yes,

I often find her gross

but I am gross too,

regardless of what

New York boys

think.

My Italian facial muscles

are just hard to read,

and it works both ways:

tall, blonde, well-bred

blue-eyed Americans

come straight from a movie

and I have to touch them

to make sure they’re real.

Getting my period feels like my body

has given up on me.

I refuse to conceive a human being

so nature takes revenge

by making me feel lousy.

Everything hurts

and a moldy sweet potato

looks sexier than me.

Period mornings feel especially hard

when you’re out of food

and your neck is so stiff that the prospect

of walking to the store 

(in the rain)

terrifies you.

But everything’s a cycle.

In less than two weeks

I’ll be in my sexual and intellectual peak,

and I will get in trouble

because of smiling

and jumping

and talking too much.

When I’m not complaining about the present

or making fun of things that I could cry about

I tend to have nostalgic thoughts.

Fantasize about loss.

But you know that already.

My father’s second wife is on facebook now.

I had a sneaky look at her pictures.

In one she’s just fifteen.

My mother used to call her

THE SLUT

and I can’t blame her for hating her.

We all do.

But in that picture

I see a beautiful girl

who looks like my brother,

enjoying her youth.

Sunlight

filters through the pine trees

above.

I don’t hate that girl.

I ate too much soup today.

I just didn’t want to look for a container

so I figured my stomach

could contain it all.

Bad idea.

It made me feel sleepy

and then all I could do was

watch Jackie Brown

on my bed.

I had fourteen things on my list today

and eating wasn’t even on it.

Maybe to jumpstart my new productive life

I can start listing obvious stuff

so I can at least cross something off it.

I am beating myself up again,

I know. How boring.

How can I stop being me?

Someone should take over.

We were supposed to get matching tattoos

for our wedding.

Farm animals

or owls

who are not what they seem.

Instead

we waited

because we were never good at making decisions.

You left them all to me.

And while I know I can come up

with the PERFECT PLAN,

I really wish I was an elf

because it might take me a quarter of a century,

and my hair will be all white by then.

So now you have a tattoo that matches hers.

Not really, 

yours is a silly butterfly

and hers an even sillier hot-dog,

but still.

What I like about this city

is that unbelievable things

are constantly happening

if you have the patience to find out

and don’t mind overstimulation.

If I want,

I can 

take free fencing lessons

in Bryant park

get the key to a secret roof garden

for twenty bucks a year

(I actually have it

in my hand right now,

it is golden and shiny)

kayak for free on the Hudson

at pier forty or ninety-six.

And then of course

there are all the people.

Sexy

smart

artistic

with dual citizenship

and Ivy League degrees.

I might need a vacation.

New York has been invaded by Romans.

The ones who look like tennis players

and that I would never 

ever

want to talk to.

But maybe I miss home

so I walk in figure eights around them

while waiting for the F.

I feel cool for half a second

because they’re tourists

while I live here now!

But then I remember

how despicable I am,

buying a latte

at the Empire State Building’s Starbucks,

supporting evil corporations just because I feel weak

and need some cardboard-tasting caffeine

before heading to the Library

where I won’t get anything done

anyway. 

Since the day I realized

that I probably like tricksters

because I am one myself

I have truly embraced

my Loki nature.

I know I need

someone to match me,

NOT adore me,

hold my hand,

promise everlasting love.

I want a wolf to wrestle with.

Someone who wants to bite

and get bitten.

Most wolves I meet

are fine with nibbling,

but I must taste like trouble:

over

and over

again

all I’m left with

is fresh tracks in the snow.

My optimistic theory

is that they were sheep in disguise.

Next time I will examine those fangs,

first.

When you’re sick

dreams are more vivid.

I woke up with a phrase

ringing in my head:

“Now we just have to wait

for it to happen again.”

I have no idea what the dream was about

but I am pleased with those words.

They evoke cyclical time

Loki’s son biting its tail

plus a faint smell of hope.

The possibility

of righting wrongs

dodging disaster

looking left before the intersection

counting to ten before speaking.

Most wrong turns are subtle

though. 

They have a way

of not looking 

important 

at all.

Chances are I would still 
mess everything up.

I’m listening to Nina Simone

on the subway platform.

A woman who looks a bit like her

(let’s pretend)

asks me where I bought my bag.

-Turkey.

I say.

She looks puzzled.

-It’s GORGEOUS.

Technically it was my father 

who gave it to me.

A long tradition of gifts

from faraway lands

full of lovers and AIDS conferences

to make up for being a pretty bad dad.

Soon after I got that bag

He did something I didn’t quite enjoy.

The next day 

Matthew and I

filed for my immigrant visa.

It’s reassuring to think about that Ocean

out there.

200 words since I'm bad

Since the day I cut that rope

that was keeping the bomb

from ticking

I became many different things 

for different people:

the letter-writing heartbroken girl

in love with the words of an ex-soldier

the older seductress

the detached lover

the destroyer of dreams

and finally

the spontaneous creature

who can’t wait to lose her head

and her underwear

when she truly likes someone

at last

even if she’s only known him

for an hour.

Now some people hate me

some love me

a few despise me

and the last one thinks I’m nuts.

This is the one that hurts.

Still better than being a wife

with a golden retriever

or a baby to feed

but it is with bitterness

that I proclaim these skinless days 

over.

Just in time for the Summer

I am going to buy myself

an atmospheric pressure diving suit

to roam the streets of New York in

and scare the tourists.

Eventually it will weigh me down.

Jumping in the Hudson

will feel like something normal

at first

and then it will be strange

and rich

that underwater world

of pearls that were his eyes

and seaweed tangled

in our home from home.