Morrows

I am in New York City with my only brother, and the trees have blossomed, and the puddles are deeper here. I marvel at the notion that this city liberates from a distance but oppresses at arm's length, and I can feel both arms encircling the island the way they do a friend. New York is a friend to whom I give little, for she takes twice what I offer. I wander in the wrong direction and without direction and for lack of direction. I walk into the wind. Most bridges look the same and you'd sink the same no matter which you fell from.

Background tracks spring from subway station performers and taxi honks and peripheral strangers' headphones. The same strangers might make eye contact more than once; each time that's not the first suspends within it a silent "you again?" The line between native and visitor blurs like layered languages do. A bookshelf's contents determine its owner's character, and the rent exists to remind the owner that Owner is a misnomer.

I do not live here and I do not want to, at least for now, and that now is my only future.

I will worry about tomorrow

tomorrow.