Eating a Sandwich in Tompkins Square

Birds and dogs and babies

and mothers and lonely men

and girls eating ice cream,

saying they wish they didn’t

have to work today.

Avenue A shut ups and fuck

offs and where are you

goings, sound kind of sweet

and the honking cars feel

like my calling. We are all practicing

meditation and I have no one

to see or anywhere to be.

Watching the tree’s shadow

move and come back, I forgive

my fathers, grandfathers, and great

grandfathers. I can be forgiving sometimes.

Who are these men eternalized in statue?

Where are the women?

The women are here, alive in the park.

And this sandwich wrapped in paper, cut diagonally—

this is what my life could be, this is what my life wants.