Sharon Mesmer

Crossing 2nd Avenue                 "what's the use of being somewhere other than                   new york and return only to find new york again"                                                                      -Sheila Alson           Crossing 2nd Avenue, thinking I'd like to die for love, remembering boots on the floor above, the sea on the other side of the wall, scent of breasts in the afternoon bathroom, your skinny beauty breaking my heart and, feeling slightly sick, thinking of suicide but too afraid to survive and lose my job.           Crossing 2nd Avenue again, the storefront beauticians cracking chewing gum against gold molars, longing for some midsummer nightmare to slide down their alleys in brilliantined blue-black hair, the neighborhood roughnecks saddled up and every young girl nervous,           nervous like me waking up naked on your dirty floor again, fat clouds dissolving out high greasy windows, hungry, tired, almost in love, the bleak stairwell five flights up, all New York naked and sleeping late, indigo spring descending, its music up and down the tenements,           your neck in my teeth and light falling through trees, dream of a dead stream, its low water moving me to the end of the corridor, your long shoulder goneaway,           and we're crossing downtown just to walk around, and voices rush in like water--requiem for everything--and love drifts down around us just like rain and I'm crossing 2nd Avenue again.

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