Walking past the Williamsburg ping-pod       I see a guy 

playing against the machine         so hungry for ping pong 

he needed neither company   nor conversation      I look away 

embarrassed      walk on         alone        past the artisanal greengrocers 

the diner     with the 25 dollar French toast        not including coffee 

taxes       service charge or tip. I re-read your messages often 

partly to keep you close         partly to internalise the ways in which 

you love me     taking my time       like mopping 

up egg yolk with buttered toast          and though I don’t see many 

people on the street most days       I hear them       hear cars    

the hoover in the corridor         the scuttle of life between 

floorboards.   Last week in Louisiana I drew up alongside 

a freight train   on one green container:  ‘Jamie in Arizona

will you be my old lady?’ I wondered if they were both still 

waiting for their train to call.       In the beginning  I was so 

precious      they kept the skin that fell from my body 

first and last moments     of enmeshment between 

mother and child enshrined by pink ribbon    faint and young         

locks of hair        a plastic clip on inches of cord 

held in the top drawer          these days we save much less        

though when aimless I focus on gathering the grains      

slipping through my days:   picnic tables under the freeway

pine ponderosa         tattered plastic     on razor wire 

the Changing Tomorrow academy                  the word ‘luncheonette’  

dream-flavoured coke a single car            driving out 

into the thick night not sure      who disappears first  the car 

or me