*Winner* of The Goodman Fund Poetry Award at CCNY
Everything is its accustomed grey
Tinged blandness, yet laughter still
Peels from children's tiny mouths;
Day drinkers stumble over
Sloppy grins from brunch’s end.
Although, perhaps, still
Too cold to spend much time
On a damp wooden bench, something calls
Us here so that we may remember
What warmth and greenery once was.
Today it may be the crepuscular
Rays guiding us to this communal space.
They peek from behind the scrim
Of grey clouds that belie the day;
Blandness, a ghost of light.
Cable knit sweaters make their appearance,
Giving call to vacation-home-money, undoubtedly
Filling this brownstone-home neighborhood.
College students give over to the week’s end and spend
Their time hunched over vegan meats.
Working through the midday fog
That the last bong rip lords over them,
Already jonesing for the brownie edible
As their dessert. Later — twilight Adderall;
The mad rush to finish scripts.
Perhaps what beckons me to the park,
Is a strong urge to sit alone in silence;
To stare off into the near distance;
To let the chaos of my mind
Find its melancholy moment of meditation.
In that space is where
My imagination wakes from its nap,
Meandering into view. Messy hair
And swollen eyes freshened by the stillness;
My breath eases.
The stretching rays of sun disappear,
The evening chill billows in. The short day
Offered all the gloriousness that was available.
Now starts the darkening hours, where
Cold noses give way to sodden tissues.
The gloom will settle in and find its adversary
Only in the face of a stiff drink, or a long hot shower
Followed by tea and wool socks. The park will thin out
Soon, as the highs wear low, and we flee
Into the escapades of a chilly city.
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