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NY Hello

New York Hello!, 1990, Ommation Press, Chicago

Turning Inside


Turning inside the windows museum
everything smells good when
you’re hungry, everything
gathers in a room
                            when you are a child
every image is close, the wet sidewalk,
every fear penetrates
                                later you examine
things, become hard, but the vulnerable
                                                core
                remains, sometimes a piece
                              of dirt
             gets in, hurts, the weight
        of people’s
different littleness,
                               we could all grow
together, to a different lightness, wet leaves
on the sidewalk, a smashed can in the fresh
         gutter,
                      light on the buildings’ forms,
in film, details, then you are alone
and it all pulls together into times
        of other people,
                               who mattered
              the way

they talked (to you), different lights
(in other countries’ rooms)
    somehow
your life becomes gentle,
                                        for one minute
(before the hounds
                              start howling
at your ankles again) but the light
lasts, maybe, after the coffee is finished


2/24/1987
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