Amateur in New York

Alone, a girl arrives in New York City and begins to take in her new home

Amateur in New York

nearly unhinged
amidst this voracious kaleidoscope
there is
a roaring, chaotic, strange
beauty
grandeur
insular and enclosed
yet it reverberates around the world

here I sit on this park bench
removed
watched by the black man in the blue coat
and through my amateur eyes
I watch the sauntering fat lady
in the magnificent patchwork dress
four little redheaded girls and their daddy
splash in the fountain

beneath me
from warm brown bricks
sunshine travels through the naked soles of my feet
around my heart and its dark, hot areas
then out my eyes
it shoots upward
in six dimensions
of
context
and matter
and soul
and detail
and art
and coincidence
upward through a maze of ironed glass and concrete
steaming toward where it came from

I stick out my tongue and taste it
I taste the world in New York City
a million billion mismatched molecules
every moment infiltrated with the light like honey
sparkling clean sweet water
amidst the madness