Immigrants, artists, tycoons seek New York.
Bloodstains from aborted dreams streak New York.
To friends from elsewhere, even the name awes.
Their eyes widen when I speak of New York.
Fickle city, we moth-fly toward your light.
You bless the rich, feed on the weak. New York
winter wind enters cheap windows. Spring is
sweet. Smog, sweat, stench – summer’s bleak in New York.
Nightclubs in churches and meatpacking plants.
Unrivalled underground chic in New York.
Venice has gondolas, London a clock.
Nothing can top the mystique of New York.
Out windows or with phony sleepovers,
suburban teenagers sneak to New York.
What’s in the fog rising from sewer grates?
What other sly poisons leak from New York?
Girls turned from Broadway hopefuls into prey,
struggling like mice in the beak of New York.
A bloody-fanged snake curls around his arm.
Souvenir ink from a week in New York.
In an alternate timeline, Plath moved on,
thrived – famous, single, and sleek – in New York.
Don’t be deterred by cockroaches and crime
or some snide expat’s critique of New York.
Alison, despite your small-town-mom clothes
and slowed-down walk, you still reek of New York