33

WEST TO EAST

It's 6:33 of a quiet Monday
And May is up, stretching out
Across Times Square, its head in the Edison
Its feet in a dish of salt

I scare up an early shift of pigeons
Checking out Katie Hinneran's ass
In Noises Off; a penny looks
Down in honor of Matthew Broderick
And Gene Wilder before him

It's quiet and cold and raincoats
Are keeping the diamond district
Warm among the thousand empty necklines
The honeycomb boxes the sheets
And the trash bags, where's
Everybody off to, Proskauer Rose?

The brass polish smell makes me hungry
And the scratches in the painted window
RCS left behind made me prorogate
A sales target to carry through
This liturgical season when everyone
Trades in the star they follow
For a little burning tongue on the head

Hugs in the Bear Stearns lobby
Ah is the building I had my insurance
Physical in really fifty storeys?
And what if it is, and what if
I take my equity and stake it
On a used wagon and Spanish class?

Will that be my precocious midlife
Leather jacket or a delayed bout
Ten rounds with angst, the angel
Of redress for ragged margins
And warm vents for sleep. Futons
Beat that, and beer is better
Than a pocket bottle of Gordon's
Even with a baby pinky red moon
In my peripheral vision I can see
A cell phone of mine say 6:55

Deterring the thief of my pink sheets
With plastic twine, up to the 30th floor
To Dug's eleven new messages, will I
Find out from the i ching whether this
Martingale will pay? You never know.
And now I have my morning, what
Will it make of me?