Spirits in the Night, II (M.A. Reilly. Morningside Heights, NYC. 2009)

Morningside Heights, July

Haze. Three student violists boarding

a bus. A clatter of jackhammers.

Granular light. A film of sweat for primer

and the heat for a coat of paint.

A man and a woman on a bench:

she tells him he must be psychic,

for how else could he sense, even before she knew,

that she’d need to call it off? A bicyclist

fumes by with a coach’s whistle clamped

hard between his teeth, shrilling like a teakettle

on the boil. I never meant, she says.

But I thought, he replies. Two cabs almost

collide; someone yells fuck in Farsi.

I’m sorry, she says. The comforts

of loneliness fall in like a bad platoon.

The sky blurs—there’s a storm coming

up or down. A lank cat slinks liquidly

around a corner. How familiar

it feels to feel strange, hollower

than a bassoon. A rill of chill air

in the leaves. A car alarm. Hail.