up the grimy steps at the Broadway/Lafayette
station, bodies pressed on all sides of me

wind blowing the smell of piss

date at the coffee shop on University Place, but
not thinking, bodies jostling around me, I cross

toward Prince and Spring and later I’m passing Franklin
and Worth into foreign symbols, foreign

tongues, red paper trash floating, torn
dragon heads, Chinatown—

a paper dragon flying high across a building, swimming, leaping

through air, looking at me

dark ink eyes, red tail flailing, talking to me:

baby float on over here, you’re the sun burning
through the sky

you’re a hole in the blue

you burn out my ink dark eyes