April 1, 2011: New York Poem, Terrance Hayes
New York Poem
Terrance Hayes
In New York from a rooftop in Chinatown
one can see the sci-fi bridges and aisles
of buildings where there are more miles
of shortcuts and alternative takes than
there are Miles Davis alternative takes.
There is a white girl who looks hi-
jacked with feeling in her glittering jacket
and her boots that look made of dinosaur
skin and R is saying to her I love you
again and again. On a Chinatown rooftop
in New York anything can happen.
Someone says “abattoir” is such a pretty word
for “slaughterhouse.” Someone says
mermaids are just fish ladies. I am so
fucking vain I cannot believe anyone
is threatened by me. In New York
not everyone is forgiven. Dear New York,
dear girl with a bar code tattooed
on the side of your face, and everyone
writing poems about and inside and outside
the subways, dear people underground
in New York, on the sci-fi bridges and aisles
of New York, on the rooftops of Chinatown
where Miles Davis is pumping in,
and someone is telling me about the contranyms,
how “cleave” and “cleave” are the same word
looking in opposite directions. I now know
“bolt” is to lock and “bolt” is to run away.
That’s how I think of New York. Someone
jonesing for Grace Jones at the party,
and someone jonesing for grace.
==
Also by Terrance Hayes: Serenade
On this day in …
2010: On Wanting to Tell [ ] about a Girl Eating Fish Eyes, Mary Szybist
2009: A Little Tooth, Thomas Lux
2008: The Sciences Sing a Lullabye, Albert Goldbarth
2007: Elegy of Fortinbras, Zbigniew Herbert
2006: When Leather is a Whip, by Martin Espada
2005: Parents, William Meredith
