New Amsterdam

Against tall bricks of the city
a woman pulled my skin with her teeth.
You want to, she said, then what is holding you back.

I would like to be satisfied
with my role in the narrative: recipient
of someone’s desire.

Bowery was named by the earlier colony,
the Dutch word for farming. I was told
the thoroughfare had once been an orchard.

Her finger in my mouth 
and crude invitation to Paris 
generated replicas of a feeling.

We got used to no farmland, 
no seasonal yield, crossing the major city artery
past hotels and smoke shops, tiny spots for ramen.

We got used to sulfur at the beach,
the beauty of some mouths, high temperatures  
in April, the accents of our mothers.

I liked when Maria said
in love we are small animals. In jeans and a long-sleeve shirt
I feel darkly of mankind.

Even in the long winter,
in contaminated snow.
I wanted the city to be like a garden. 

Now the trees express a different green.
Green wind, green branches, wrote Lorca.
Your mother only sounds like your mother.