Blues on Avenue C

At night from my window I’d watch the liquor store owner
drag down his metal door, the spray-painted portrait
of his wife materializing above the dates of her birth
& death, she had those eyes that follow
you around, I couldn’t see the stars that winter
unless they froze & fell like broken glass, the moon was so
high it looked like an overdose, I was so sick with grief
I wanted to stab a streetlight behind its curtain of fog & deliver
a mournful soliloquy to a trembling little dog under
a blank marquee, the stoplights rocked in
ruthless wind, bicycles churned through the slushy intersection,
a staggering blanket-clad couple paused to argue beneath
the wife’s uneven blue eyes, their voices rising up to meet me
full of song & misery