Astor:

New York City, your smoke’s addictive/ but I never saw

Central park swamped in snow / or the Empire State

Breakfast at Tiffanys, Dinner at Cartier,

Past 5^th’s a riot.

Don’t tell me you’ve ever seen so much/ yellow

Admire/ the rooftop forests (Harlem sure is be-a-u-tiful mid-June)

Majestic specimens of rarity: dead peonies, dried begonias,

Roses crushed underfoot where they fell,

Limbs splattering linoleum on the march to the knock-off Park Ave. bedroom

A couple post-code digits over.

(when the smoke reaches your throat you gag “freedom”)

New York, your ribs concrete

Laced by a metro corset.

Broadway’s a neon primadonna,

But it’s too late to pull her from her tourist-trap tower.

She likes the/voyeurs

Their waves rescind with East Hampton summers/ East Hampton

Who shares the same sky as you?

Imagine Fourth of July on the other side.

How much closer to the ground.

How much warmer.

How much smarter (goldens are a loving breed but god are they stupid).

Eis nacht.

New York, the candor of manhole covers

(the white man keeps them down) beaten under,

Help you keep your legs together.

Once the Amtrak rolls in you know its over.

Keep your fingers crossed under your Barbour.

SoHo’s heard all your stories/

What a bore.

New York,

My girl’s the one with diamonds the brightest,

but London’s got its own crown.

Stolen hands clasped in taxicab backs

New York, touch me with your five-borough fugue

I can’t find the voice I want to choke.

London, give me a last name.

“give me liberty or give me death”

We may have lost the Blitz but we won the war.

The wind through the Tube/ capillaries/ stutters the blood

You sip, no chug, the cup, six years coming

Industrial grade borax for the soul.