These glances press against you like the surges of the breeze
off the Hudson crossing Hudson Street.
What could be going on in the mind of the young,
upwardly mobile person shopping for vitamins and beansprouts
hard by The First National Church of the Exquisite Panic?

Doesn’t the whole city cry out to him
that he must do something remarkable today?
One assumes (one can assume anything)
that behind the charming pediment of a smile
there is an interior to be explored, a suite of rooms—
a place at least big enough for a piano and a bed.

Perhaps there is only darkness, you say,
a wormeaten stair curving down from nowhere
to nothing, but that would be too bad to think of
on a day in January of such warmth it seems
a gesture of forgiveness, like the scarf
a neglected relative sent to you.

On 15th Street we assume the best, that
you will find the thing you have been looking for
in the hat shop on Greenwich Avenue,
or that winter like a curse is spent once and for all.

On 13th Street the banners blow
in sad celebration of family, friends, and lovers.
In the little triangular park by Horatio
where the homeless slept last summer
they are building a fountain from the last century.
Ah, streets where are you taking us?