A Poem.

The city felt empty days ago

I push through every demographic

-- all clad in black.

New Yorkers trudge through the slush

like a swarm of flies

zig-zagging,

hurtling forward in

near-misses.

I smile at everyone

and no one

in particular.

Disguised in my dark pea coat,

I am a Monarch in fly's clothes.

I am glowing,

unnoticed

like a nightlight in an empty bedroom.

She is finally mine

and she will have me too

and it's the scariest kind of relief

to be mutually in love.

Yávos

Yávos.

Sunlight captured in a jar of honey

refractions crafting

drops of gold

perfectly browned toast,

Holla at that challah!

French toast

melts in your mouth

and takes your mind with it

for a minute.

Mango coladas take me back

to umbrella toothpicks,

ordering Shirley Temples with a wink

and a plain slice with

"extra cheese, please!"

This is childish sophistication

summed up in unexplained foodie quirks.

Initial contact.

Cream swirls in rich coffee

like waves of molten chocolate.

Decadence in color,

delight in sensation.

Strawberries at their peak in the summer sun

a berry-picking smorgasbord

for kids with juice-stained hands.

Milk moustaches,

grapefruit splatters,

peanut butter and jelly with the

crusts cut off

the middle slice of the banana bread

the center brownie

Striving for high living--

treat yourself to it.

I once flew down the street

I once flew down the street. I was on my way to preschool with my mom and my little brother and it was a warm but gray, calm but windy morning. We descended a steep hill down towards Riverside Park, when suddenly the wind picked up. This was no ordinary wind—I could feel it. It approached quietly but suddenly and before I knew it, a canopy of dark clouds loomed over us and violent gusts of wind ushered us down the street like bouncers in a nightclub. Plastic bags and candy wrappers danced and flurried over the sidewalk like a herd of urban tumbleweeds. I gripped my coat tightly inside of my pockets, keeping to myself while my brother held onto my mom’s hand. We slowly walked onward down the hill as the sky howled and grew angrier with each step.

I looked down at the sidewalk which was littered with blackened spots of spat-out chewing gum. There were so many of them there… I wondered which flavors and colors each of them had contained. But before I could begin to contemplate the mouths that had spit those spots out, I felt my body begin to lighten as if I was standing on my tip-toes. My elbows lifted up ever so slightly and I slowly inflated like a balloon preparing to float off, lighter than the sky. And that’s just what I did! A huge gust of wind came barreling down the hill and knocked straight into my back, picking me up from underneath and carrying me down with it towards the bottom of the hill.

Not knowing what else to do, I ran with the air, suspended in an involuntary motion for a few moments until I approached a thick black lamp post. I quickly dislodged my hands from my coat pockets and wrapped my arms around its stable metal body as the wind and I passed by. And I broke free of the wind and twirled around and around the lamp post as my momentum gradually slowed down, until I found myself sitting on the sidewalk with my arms and legs wrapped around it. I sat there for a minute as I waited for my mom and brother. They reached me after a bit and I got up and rejoined the school-bound march. And as we continued to make our way the rest of the way down the hill, I reached out my hand from my coat pocket and slipped it carefully into my mother’s.