CuppaGemma

Today, like the can of soda,

exploded unexpectedly

all over my hands

Then finished much too quickly

Some days are best put back unopened

until later when no one is hot, bothered

or expecting much…

There is no hour, as day takes
night with a hard hand twisting
like pipe cleaners in blue on red
as the shops stay open intentionally

Old Navy insists they make it fun again
and even a Kmart diagonally from R.H. Macy’s
which thankfully is closed and kept the
copper, and only movies make kisses atop

The Empire State sweet because they almost
didn’t happen, tonight it’s just a green cap
with the waft of tourists carrying plastic
sacks of chain pizza that is not Ray’s nor

Any way original as Starbucks pushes too
many corners, so Dunkin’ Donuts has to join
a whole bunch of others to form one large place
where only the lost go late at night…

As luggage wheels in and out and
eyes look up and whisper in other
languages and the gifts glitter
with someplace that, this is, sorta

Supposed to be, and the officers
keep us all in mind and even the
cabbies have gone extra polite but
do not break the paced din of the

Diner guests as we all keep delving
our bent forks into this place with
sparkles on the street that is more
stained with gum and the news wire pulls

Itself past my eyes in a gallop with
more and more to say, and which end of
the street do they drop the ball from
anyway? but please can’t those awful

Pink party bikes go away and there are
little drawn cabs with faded silk flowers
and the trains, hear them rumble as their
black soot humid smell jumps in beside

The burned chestnuts and old pretzels and
where is the good hot dog guy, let’s go get
real knishes down by Cooper, since they
know what to do and never updated to this

Time that ticks into television bytes
aching your head more than the
fourth day of the sixth cup of coffee
Enough. I shall take you somewhere else-

It’s not a quiet little cafe on a side street
since we agree the Avenues are too grand,
nor a perfect little pub with dark walnut
walls and decent bottled ales, it’s another

Place across the water, where we can watch
the lights first and then sit till we are
tired after, we can even smell the sea and
there is wine and some old songs with no dust

And it only can be found, in a certain
now and again, like rainbows in the Falls,
always flickering between mist and wind,
holding us in a little great love

St. Chris is clipped to keep us safe,
EZ pass marks discounted tolls, handmade
bows tell this vehicle was new, although often
instead there’s a little flag of where we were from
fading with the rosary beads or tassles

Are now permitted within moderation, stickers on the
back telling me- honk if I hate Bush, who’s proud
of their kid’s PS, believe in the Rangers, or insist
we never not remember a certain day of the year,
given the world fell down for a lot of this Island

And who breaks for fairies, supports our troops
in magnets, tells me that America is the greatest place
there ever was, except to boycott Walmart, Costco and
those darned import cars, now step on up and into
the SUV and watch the little sedanites beneath you

With coffee cups and Snapple bottles flanking the streets
like children released to the park in summer and the
sanitation officers with T.J. Eckleberg eyes instead
poking their sticks in my rubbish to verify
milk carton sortation a more urgent misdemeanor

We are lost with blue tooth technology, having
conver–stations without faces to read that lead
us through stop signs and polite lies as rear
seat DVDs play to little ones for ten minute
trips for take out dinners at two different places

And we carry tuneless winges over the cost of fuel,
no one else pumps or washes the windshield,
checking the oil as out of place as a proper gentleman
suggesting a walk with nowhere exactly in mind-
quiet company, but maybe a coffee later…

Green goes the light and horns
follow in their cacophony
of up and down pauses before wheels
roll as a mother’s bench lullabye
licks against the leaves that
wave the day to dark, and grass
is warmer than if the cat napped on it
as the metal swings squeal
with the pound of children

And the path has dogs, spandex joggers,
red nails in careful little sandals,
sweating soccer men and several large
pizzas carried from the corner store, before
the shade coats the day and the stones
that jut like acne will still stay warm,
benches are long green strips of wood and
the busker plays for you to buy his CD,
not handfuls of smiles and change…

Then the little hill goes up and around
as you can nearly touch the traffic signal
by the part where the road cuts like a box knife
through the quiet, but there are enough rolling
stone walls that I forget there is such a thing
as time and other places to be, until a couple
sound asleep on their green square remind my heart
the park is a large empty place where I should
stand straight and walk quickly to stop the
sad sort of pollen from reddening my eyes-

With another day when the weather was warm
we looped crunching circles around willow trees…