And the sky shrinks above us into a muted blue retreat
Sucking the last sounds out of the day
Birds gone, clouds overcast & fewer horns & honks
David told me that New York nights might explode like firecrackers
And I was convinced I would too, feeling that second wind
Of the first block outside the park, heading across the streets
North Little Italy is Nolita like some kind of fairytale land
Every doorway has outdoor café seats with lights strung across
Making shapes like Y’s & Z’s, their little centers glowing
Glowing brighter than the tips of cigarettes
Making the soft skin of nighttime girls warm & lovely
We come upon Café Habana on the bottom floor
Of an apartment building carved out in slick steel
Like a diner a little too clean for Havana
Cuban food from Mexico City transplanted
In the middle of this city makes it seem double out-of-place
David puts in his name with the lady at the front
Stealing an extra long glance up & down
Deciding she’s too short or too something
People spillover out into the street smoking & talking
Casual conversations about what they had done during the day
Like it was already history, not enough to remember
A couple stands in the narrow doorway trapped
Between the inside rush & the outside crowd
As we move past them to the counter for a cerveza
Every table is full, right up against the next
The counter has two people to a seat, connected together
Skinny models chewing over salty corn cobs
Bathed in cheese, cayenne & secreto spices
That cakes in the corners of their lips like salt deposits
“Damn! You’ve gotta try the corn!” someone shouts
And a handful of people hold their cobs up in agreement
The walls are white but not just white
They would tell me they are “imperial white”
Or “majestic white” or “patriot white” as if there were a white
That meant more white than the others, we would prove otherwise
After half-an-hour we almost gave up but stepped outside to
Wait a few more minutes because the food looked heavenly
I leaned against the west wall next to David &
We closed our eyes to rest for a second then opened them
I stared across the street at a mural hand painted on the wall
Red atomic explosions & a deathly caricature of power
In black the words were scrawled, “How many more have to die?”
And below it a quote from Martin Luther King &
Ghandi who reminded us what path to take & we were wrong
I told David that it must have been the bad luck of our century
He nodded in agreement because there wasn’t anything left to say
The almost-cute chica called David’s name out & we hurried inside
Shoved into a booth two inches from our neighbor
I ordered a mojito & a beer & some of that corn plus dinner
David a beer, cob & some machaca enchiladas
Now, it was definitely dark outside but the street lights
Made webs of illumination joining together along the boulevard
The corn came & it was so good with a little vicious kick
An aftertaste coating your throat & sure to linger for days
Followed up by a plate split into rice & beans, yellow & red
A huge pork chop smoothed over with a layer of goat cheese
Marinating under a wine & mushroom sauce flavored with black pepper
Weighing down rice into a neatly, compacted pile
And I ate it all up, filling my stomach all the way to the edges
David & I threw some cash down on the table after another round
And ran across six blocks to catch the 9 into the Village

And somewhere south we could say
This town has scars, red & raised on Barclay & Church
Big time like no time at all & almost alive in the afterglow
Of hearts dimmed & silent as if nothing mattered more than war
And as the underground shot through the dingy tunnels
Watching the repetition of lights then cement out the window
David told me he missed Los Angeles & was unhappy here
With all the $25 dollar dinners, girls & drinks-for-two
He said, “That’s what I do, I get up & go, I get up then I go”
He motioned out the window as I saw fly by on the other side
An artifice of construction with rusting girders
And wood twisted into columns, holding things up
That shouldn’t have fallen in the first place
We will have nightmares about nightmares about night
David nods & tells me he hated the month of September before
And he pulls his hat down over his head for five minutes until
The train stops so suddenly I tumble forward in my seat
David wakes up & shouts something unintelligible
And we step out onto the temporary concrete
Glide up the stairs & back out into the ice chill of N.Y.C.
We walk slowly a few blocks to Down The Hatch
Fall down the stairs into a basement of break-apart glass
Through a dying green door & into the under
David waves to a few women in the corner & scrapes across
The floor covered with sawdust to hide the rickets
Flashing neon beer signs like crosses with the edges bright
Burning in this last night on Earth, David bought the first pitcher
We made a home in a corner of the bar overlooking everything
Drank top to bottom $5 beer & pear cider
Until the sweet & bitter taste mixed in our stomachs
Stuck in our throats & promised a bad morning
David faded into the wood, missing words & staring off
At this one couple playing pool across the way
The woman had a tight maroon top clutching her
The guy standing behind her, hands on her hips
Rubbing up against her like two sticks together
She had a look he couldn’t see on her face
Like the evening was sad but she was lonely
She looked like she couldn’t turn around & face him
And in this city lonely is natural & basic
David held his head in his hand, sighed like he always did
Thinking of a better story for her & this 4AM life
“She would look at me,” he said & I nodded
After four pitchers just like this I had to catch the train
Which ran out to Great Neck only every two hours
I planned to sleep it all off & wait for sunlight
We swallowed the last of our glass, polished it off
Took the same connector down to Penn Station
Like all the songs say this city can be long
The night lasted so long like three days
Down the stairs to wait for the 2, David leans
His entire weight & body against the side of the railing
His skin pressing through the grating
He drifts off to sleep, I pace back-&-forth
And yell out to him over the noise that shouldn’t be there
“These trains keep passing us by. They just keep passing us by.”
© Adam Bresson