there was a second there
even though I had forgotten my black and white scarf and the April wind
blew the New York wet and cold that can only be blown in New York
when it isn’t winter and it isn’t spring and the sun hasn’t shined since you got back into town
and there was this still second when I knew spring was coming under
my fur in an animal way like that red sense of food just off awareness
maybe fleet running prey or yellow papaya
but I knew something else some sidewalk satori
all motion ended and focus was tight
and everything CLICKED and I loved New York and I loved
all these people and the deep chocolate taste of grimsweet reality
and felt the spring that I smelt on that absence of breeze
in the middle of the block right there on York Avenue wasn’t a matter
of orbits and daylight and axial tilt but rotations and revolvings
of a more metaphorical sort and
rebirth never needs dying
and then I turned into the butcher’s and thought about dinner (duck I believe)
without even realizing what had just happened and just what it was that I’d just forgotten.
