Past three-fifteen
on this Brooklyn street
where ice is shattered latticework
on oily puddles
but in this room
it is so hot
the ice in the glasses melts
and the window fogs.
In the grey brick Church
down the block
I know,
because I went in at this time of night
a few weeks ago,
there are old women
in sofa-print dresses
kneeling before statues
and thinking up things
they could call themselves guilty for.
Your apartment holds
dozens of scattered icons.
Beads hung from mirrors,
statues from Italy and Ireland
cracked wood
and shining ivory
here for free
to offer me guilt
and redemption
if I’m asking.
But I’m not asking for anything
except the cold.
You sleep on the sofa
arm death-blue
in the television light
sleeping with
what you wouldn’t give
in the name of those old women
and your mother’s
graven images.
Lifting the window
I lean out toward
lights of the Verrazano Bridge,
clean in the three o’ clock.
Wind gathers sweat
from my skin
and takes it from me
without asking.
I’m cold, finally
in your Brooklyn winter
not asking
to find or lose anything.
This piece originally appeared in the student publication Poets of the Corn, published in 1989.