A little man skies over Cyrillic hieroglyphics behind
the jazz quartet at the Nu Blu Club on Avenue C
—I drink a Lotus Flower and translate the words

on the wall, and the red and blue air—until I am
solid drunk on my own elucidations of the world.
At midnight: the East River bridges draped in tiny

white stones, blinking to an apartment window; friends
trailing thin white lines in the bathroom to find their
way home. Vague downtown geography; traffic

trickling through the city’s veins; the distant muse
of time expanding into empty black light. Why do
we believe that sadness seems lovelier, and rounder,

from a neon height? A flat dawn: dusty and overly
bright. A thin moon clings to the sky, an acidic wash.
A water kettle boiling somewhere, sleepy elbows

shifting on the couch. The empty river slinks to its
beginning, you can almost hear the water funneling
by your ears, until you understand you understand

nothing much, not the space between things, not home,
not the deluding content of a night.