Clouds straddle your belly. Will the sun ever

crack through your sores? Chilled silver, bruised,

you let leaves die in ochre dresses, rest in chewing-gum

graves in Washington Square Park. Un-responded texts tiptoe

over the dog run, the fountain, digital elegies 

begging to be read. Under the arch, teenagers wait

for their first college kiss. May their thin-lipped bumps

last all winter, ignorant of one another’s shapes.

Because of your return, I celebrate sweaters

that endure storage, secrete age in mothball puffs.  

Dank chemical smells. But I put on lipstick, go

to the gym. Somewhere I imagine inhaling the honey

of wood crawling from chimneys that don’t exist

in this city. My hair, lonely with sweat,

clings to your cold and doesn’t let go.