My first trip to New York City I wore black:
black leather boots, black dress, black panties, black bra,
black glass-bead earrings against cotton-white
skin. I was with my then black-haired, blue-eyed,
too beautiful boyfriend, my lover, a Ph.D. candidate
in Italian history. Twenty-something poet
aiming for her first grown-up romance.
We walked through Washington Square Park
on our way from chianti and pasta primavera
to hear musicians, names I can’t recall, but Blues,
with him it was always the Blues — white audiences watching
black men, black women, as if this was something we knew,
something we wanted to call our own.
We had taken trains from our separate cities:
me, from Pittsburgh, him, from Chicago, meeting
at Penn Station to spend an extended weekend,
using his brother’s Chelsea apartment — the elegant
marble entryway, the doorman, the slow rise
of the elevator to a room with a single-window view
of a blinking neon city light, red against
the murphy bed, everything new to me,
even our bodies, his skin, the scent of him.
Walking to dinner, we saw a man shatter
a car window, steal someone’s luggage
and dart off in a motion so swift it seemed singular.
I marveled at how big-city anonymity begat crime
committed in plain sight. Later, we witnessed
a group of teens pour gasoline on a building, light it
on fire, and flee. My new beau held me
to him as the young arsonists brushed by
drenched in the scent of spilt fuel.
Two blocks on, we heard the sirens, but there was beauty
in the way those flames danced off the wall
and reflected in the eyes of this man
who would, that same night, end us in the red, lit bed,
his words delivered in staccato succession,
each paired with a thrust: I. Can’t. Do. This. Any. More.
I thought he meant the sex, but the truth,
he said, was that he was still in love
with an ex. So, I packed up my black
clothing and walked to Penn Station with him
trailing after me, thinking he needed to protect me
from the horrible, beautiful city. While I said, no, no, go.
In the mail, he sent it all back to me — the poetry I had lent
him, a toothbrush, my silk nightgown, and a note of apology
written on yellow legal paper, neatly penned.
