Columbus Circle

It's hardly credible how
it's 3 A.M. again on Sunday
-- Mother's Day May --
and I've put my flask on a
stranger's sill and bared my chest
getting smaller by the year.

The blinds are down
in the Upper West Side
and in the morning I will
go blocks from her
for the Sunday Times
and a deli in the lower 80s:
pastrami eggs and a latke base,
tricolor slaw that leaks to
the pickles, my fingers
reek of half-sours
until Wednesday
afternoon.

Columbus Circle
I switched A to C train,
a pivot foot cresting
express to local,
first initial to last
and there you were,
also waiting,
my never-friend.

I'm still living at home you say,
like home was an old friend we used to share
-- some place that was broken into --
we overlook the color
always inside subway cars
(elephant gray)
and we watch the walls pass.

It's hardly credible how
on days built for running away,
discoveries always collide
with the old disciples
of dead religions.

I tell you how good you have it,
to still live at home;
good memory you tell me back.