Initials For Seeds

Where I meet L in

the park it is early spring. We try to look

past unbuttoned buttons, foaming

want. I don’t know how we stand

to see the

large window second

floor that faced the street.

A cat looks out the window I’m on

the floor with the cat

and S. Is she not exhausted?

The Replacements’ Swinging Party — 2008 Remastered plays

on vinyl the day S gets into Iowa

we go to the Strand,

landmark one, on Broadway. Of course

she sees somebody she knows.

Is she not exhausted,

lure of a visible rib cage?

On a bench her body has set

woman’s heart aflutter

and she already has her will over

the next one.

S is not all here. She tells me.

She doesn’t need to.

A being like a washable marker is

begging for opinions before it disappears.

On the edge of the sidewalk across from the park

N’s best friend is devouring an enormous froyo.

Yesterday’s mouse comes back

like a wound. Sprinkles and my grief

are the flavors this season.

Initials bloom from seeds.

Everywhere are concrete cracks to prove it.

Tie a woman

to a radiator

and drag her through the street,

L’s mother advised,

but don’t run scared