You can do the work just by starting it. You can
do whatever you want. A bill
is drafted on a train to Albany, or in a black
limousine. Like how one day I walked
the entire length of Manhattan, except I didn’ t.
I didn’ t finish. Not nearly. How could I?
Stopped as I was by the boat basin. These
credit cards fill with gin
and tonic. They pool with the stuff. Maybe
I get a little lost sometimes,
start thinking I went to Yale. Once I swam
to Governors Island, between the ferries
and freighters. It was like a job you should’ ve seen
me quit. Maybe they looked for me. Maybe
it wasn’ t someone else’ s shift, and then
it was. Sometimes people are just turnstiles.
You have to tell them to keep
turning, keep turning into someone else. The rain
crashes across a cab, and the road
has filled. We’ re waterborne. Or whatever
the word is for that little moment
when the heart lifts. Why don’ t you devote
yourself the way you once did? It’ s
an old answer, and an early
one. The alarm goes off for a while after it
stops. In your face in the bathroom
mirror. You play that little song to look at
your teeth. My teeth. They haven’ t been cared for.
The class giggles at my age. This is
my hearing. The chances taken on a new face.