De La Vega’s gallery at 6:30. It’s not like seeing his chalk on the streets; the walls, the floor and ceiling — everything painted. Faces in bellies. Piles of commingled bodies.
The galleries of Harlem. Mixta at 7:00 for poetry. Popo’s with its twists that make everyone laugh. Tato’s where every other line is sung and an edificio abandonado. Fabiola and her bravura combinations of ineffables and water. A poet from Lawrence, MA with a mesmerized bird trapped in his chest. The MC and her Viva La Conga Africana. My functional illiteracy and my brain’s complete inadequacy to take it all in. I left exhausted.
Cache for swing, and I wasn’t exhausted. The perpetual swivel recharges itself. Every man, when you get close enough, has a milk smell around his mouth, like he’s been interrupted from nursing. How is this possible? Even the steady were pulling on bourbons tonight.
On the train home: A Turkish restauranteur with doe eyes like my sister’s. He recommended a book for “anyone trying to find themself.”
The trees on Queens Boulevard are dripping with blossoms. It’s below forty again; a tease. Like leaving with him, but not playing along about missing the last train.
When, in my course of self-imposed seclusion, did the whole world become edible?
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