Hudson Street

Somewhere in me 

I only eat scrambled eggs.

The yolks stain paper bowls with a glowing shadow.

And they are cooked on a rusty white stove in a cramped apartment.

Somewhere in me 

my mother washes my young body with dish rags in the leaking tub.

And she braids one thick clump of hair down my back.

Somewhere in me is a list of what I’m afraid of:

Cruise ships 

Fitted silhouettes

A self-conscious man

The contents of my lungs consuming me

Somewhere in me I can read 

everything I’ve ever said to you

and know that I've built a new kind of piety with my own hands.

Somewhere in me 

I’m alone in an unnamable town,

in a diner we’ve been to many times

and I finally write 

about someone new.