Abby Kloppenburg

NEW YORK by Abby Kloppenburg

first there’s the couple crawling across the white tablecloth just to deliver the punchline, heads back in hilarity before the joke’s even finished. does the pavement remember all the dinners it’s caught the drops from? the flood of people leaking out their front doors every morning, just trying to find each other? next there’s the bouquet of older women at the farmer’s market bowing to the tomatoes like minor gods, and to the model pinching closed a designer bag filled with nothing but tissues and Vaseline. which is more beautiful? and then, doesn’t the subway deserve more than all that spilled beer and spit? after all, it’s cradled so many bodies as they’ve cried, planned and slept, and didn’t the doors open that one time the man jammed his hand in when he thought he recognized his mother? all i know is there’s something about how the storefronts on 5th Ave leave their lights on long after closing time, the quiet nighttime street flanked by hundreds of mannequins, still lit.