Breathing to the music of a New York street piano

This is New York
this is summer
we eat pizza
above a soap shop.

This is heat
this is vapour
wrecking our room
sweaty and sticky
like a napalmed
watermelon.

This is me
thinking of
cupcakes, fire escapes and
the open air cinema in Bryant Park

I make a bubble bath
for my heart

but you

were prettier in Spring, I’m sorry.

This is you now
a version of you
left in the rain
the rain of summer
and sewers
and dog hair.

This is the moonlight
that ghosts your cheek
filling in the craters
of your skin.

This is a tear
that drops because
you miss your home.

It falls like a coin
slowly
sinking towards the
Hudson’s floor.

This is your eye that’s
dry and blue, it glows
madly in the evening sun.

We were never good
at being young.

This is me pulling a face
and you, pretending to laugh.

This is the difference, that’s ours
and it will keep growing
within us
like a tree

until we part.