walking in central park

Nadie me dijo
el dolor ascerbico del presente,
y cuando lo descubrí,
fue en un sueño
entre los dedos de mis pies,
bailando algo loco,
gritando su tristez
en disfraz de "un dia normal.”

I couldn't explain this in English
as I wrote the poem on my phone,
in stride, 
dodging tourists in Central Park,
not on mushrooms.

It was a little simile,
a beautiful stranger who
passes on the street:
you have to 
look back.

“I’ll take care of you,” the trees told me.
There were still horses then,
children
and yellow leaves.

“These are last fall’s leaves.” she said
And she said many other things as well.

When I started this poem I asked
"What would J.W. read?"
What wouldn't J.W. read?
J.W. is a halibut.
She is Billy Jean and
also she is not my lover.

Wandering poets,
brains all molten
at the pit of the wishing well.
Dip a bucket in me.
Dip a bucket:
my water 
is brine.

My water is brine because I held my tears
and her hand
all night
all those nights.
It took a
downwind whiff
of a 
more than two
port-o-potty row
to shake those finger tips loose.

There is fruit in my bag.
I just arrived at the reservoir
with its weird skyline.

I remember some questionable snot nosed kiss happened here.
He was too old.
She was too sick.

Are we trees or are we leaves?
We are leaves.
We are sweet skinned old bikini women,
shoulder straps down,
shiny and hot.

If there's anything other than drinking a bit
and walking the length of the park
poetry phone in hand,
tell me it!

There's fruit and a bottle of champagne in my backpack and no
I'm not making sangria.

Get your 2k a day from
someone else's sugar water.
This is purely recreational.

No I am not one of those
buff work out guys
running shirtless and lubed
around the Onassis.

But I am a poet with
two beers and a bottle in my pack
three peaches and a couple manzanas.
Everything is coming up
apples
this tarot reading.

I could retire to a bungalow
with a record player in West Berkeley,
could tear my clothes off
and somersault up
Central Park West.
But today: not.

Today I use the feet:
one then the other
and the thumbs:
tip-tap tip-tap.
My feet make the trudge sound.
Thumbs are making letters.
These letters
which by the way You
are writing
by reading them
and I am reading by
writing them,
and now You
can choose to stop.