NEW YORK TOMPKINS SQUARE 1980
by Bridget Seley-Galway
He disappears between worn out buildings
where darkened corners supply a needle’s relief.
I am worn from this moment to a knot.
In my usual taciturn, I am benched under the grand Oak Tree.
Again I feel its reproach
rising up from its roots.
Once it was valued for its beauty.
Now it shades the broken and wretched,
garbage tossed and blown.
And I,
still innocent,
molded from this familiar circumstance,
loving a poet whose damage comes first.
This is the slipknot of my childhood:
a frayed strand, woven by hip conversations,
about books and revolution.
The brilliant guided me,
some drunks and junkies, tolerated and adored.
I harbored by their words,
tossed and turned in their shifting currents,
loss and gain —
loss and gain —
a constant anticipation of better.
Now,
scathed again in the waiting.
He emerges,
moves towards me in slow stride,
this lion to his den.
Pulls me to him,
dips me into a kiss.
I am collected,
as the flower archived in a glass paperweight
that settles on his words.
He says
He says
He says
“You know, Geeta,
these are great old buildings.
If I just had some money,
I could get a nice space,
make it fine and write.”
And I
scribble in my notebook over unfinished poems,
advertised phone numbers
“Renting Option to Buy.”
In this want, I am
again
adopted undone!
Copyright © 2016 by Bridget Seley-Galway.