Yesterday, I asked you which would be better:
warm or cold water.
Warm, you said
and shuttered at the thought of drowning,
the thought of me among the leaves and bramble,
my skin swollen and torn.

Did the train stop or was it still moving? I was still
crying and the woman beside me asked why.
I told her that I did not know. I knew.
You had left me weeping on the platform
in Newark, New Jersey. It was silly to cry you said,
and you were right. I did not let you see me cry.
I did not watch you out of sight.
---
The rat ran out from the bush
and you said he was All Bad Things.
Then you threw rocks at the rat
and he ran into the bush and disappeared in the pond-water.
I looked after him. Afterwards,
a bird watched us from the windowsill,
ruffling his feathers his dark black feathers
and rolling his eyes back into his skull.
I was frightened of the bird, but I did not say so out loud.
I said he was a sweet bird but you disagreed, you
said he was a city-bird, a sullen bird
who was not a sign or an omen.
---

“If this is a city,” you said, “where are all the cats
and street musicians? Why are there only rats
and toy-lions in the subway ditch?
What does this mean? Are these signs good or bad?
What will we do next? When will I see you again?” After you left

a homeless man played harmonica
in the train station, lions were everywhere.
---

On the subway I feel for a minute I am going blind
and I have to blink twice before the colors come back.
Yesterday, you left me weeping on a train platform
in Newark. The man beside me offered to carry my bag.
The train was not moving. I was still crying.
When will I see you again? The woman again
asked why I cry and I said I do not know.
I did not know. Even the trees
seem to be mourning in the park, their limbs
cut down their branches reaching to the river.

You asked me to count the rivers
as I drove North, to try to name and remember them.

---

Was the train still moving, or had it stopped?
Was I still crying?
You said not to watch you out of sight
so I did not. The proverb, that if I watched you
I would not see you again.
When will I see you again? The train stops
on a bridge outside of Newark
and I imagine the train will tip over,
crash in to the water with the ducks
and the people will scream and the bags will fly
and you’ll never come back to this city.
You told me not to cry
but I weep and weep and the woman
beside me asks why and I tell her
that I do not know. It is a lie.
---

Was it yesterday I last saw you?
No, it was Sunday and we went all the way
to Brooklyn, where a rat sat with us
in the garden and then you threw rocks
at the rat and made animal noises
so that he would leave but I did not scream
and then you said the rat
was everything bad but I didn’t believe you.

All day, lions stalked us
through the city. You wanted cats
and you got them. In the museum,
paintings of Christ as a lion.
On the library gate, statues of lions.
A toy-lion in the subway ditch,
in the water with the subway cards
and bottle caps. Can lions swim?
Will you come back?
Did we drown when the train fell
into the water?

You said I must have been a lion,
once. In the museum, when I told you
looking at Egypt was like looking
at home and in another museum
you were frightened by the ivory staff
and I had to take you outside
and then we watched a woman
and her father walk around in circles
in the park and what are you thinking
and why do your eyes look like that?

You were the lion and your mane was wet
with pond water, water that was stained
with oil from the city and the trains.
Your mane was wet from the oil
and the bird on the windowsill was wet
from the rain and I said he looked sick
but you said he was only cold
and I said I wanted to hold him
but you said he did not want to be held
and the next day he was dead
outside of the library and you touched him
with your foot and he did not move
and you touched me with your hand
and I did not move and I envied the bird
who was dead on the pavement,
all his feathers and bones askew,
because he’d flown south year after year
over rivers which I knew someday would swallow me whole.