O New York City!
Your sky is sharp.
Saw the light grow
and fill in January
with a Delft blue,
clear as Vermeer
at the Frick: clarity
I love most of all.
City I could marry.
A brilliant violet
streaks the edges.
Uzbekistan market,
I taste your mint,
meat and beets.
Couldn’t sleep again.
The cut hyacinths
hold a musty scent.
All these shadows
by Jasper Johns.
I hear the traffic
on 6th. The air clean.
The snow like felt
upholsters the streets.
I look out, I look up.
I am at the height
of the cross now—
so close I can touch it.
My mother is dead.
Copyright © 2026 by Spencer Reece. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 18, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
