New York, Up Close
New York is not the skyline.
It is the man on 116th
watering the sidewalk
like concrete can get thirsty too.
It is the cracked yellow fingernail
of the lady at the deli
who knows your sandwich
before your mouth opens.
It is the little girl asleep on two train seats
in a princess coat
while her mother, still in scrubs,
leans against the window
with tired in her bones
and tomorrow already waiting.
It is not Times Square.
It is the faded mural
half covered by scaffolding,
the one everybody passes
but somebody paid for in grief.
It is the fruit man
stacking bruised bananas in a pyramid
like even the almost-gone things
deserve to look beautiful.
It is pigeons bullying a bagel.
A church hat on a windy corner.
A laugh too loud for the block
and nobody mad at it.
It is the barber
turning a boy toward the mirror
so slowly
you’d think he was revealing
the future.
It is the woman on the bus
holding a birthday cake flat in both hands
like trust is still possible.
It is how summer smells
when the hydrant is open,
when children turn screaming
into a kind of music,
when even the heat
seems to come up from the people
instead of the sun.
It is old men playing dominoes
with the force of history.
Teenagers walking in packs,
all bravado and baby faces.
Sneakers tied to wires.
A plastic bag dancing
like it has somewhere urgent to be.
New York is a city
forever fixing its wig in a broken mirror.
A city with chipped teeth
and gold in the smile.
A city that curses you out,
holds the door,
and keeps walking
like kindness was an accident
nobody needs to talk about.
It is not made of landmarks.
It is made of almosts.
Almost home.
Almost rich.
Almost gone.
Almost summer.
Almost caught the train.
Almost made it.
And still
every morning
it ties its boots,
opens its gates,
lifts its shutters,
sells its coffee,
sweeps its stoops,
and begins again
like beginning again
is the most ordinary miracle
in the world.
This is New York,
not the version printed on T-shirts,
but the one with grocery carts,
school uniforms,
side-eye, steam, sirens, saints,
and one good hoop earring
left on the sidewalk
like evidence
somebody magnificent
was here.
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