Morningside Heights, July

Haze. Three student violists boarding 
a bus. A clatter of jackhammers.
Granular light. A film of sweat for primer 
and the heat for a coat of paint.
A man and a woman on a bench: 
she tells him he must be psychic,
for how else could he sense, even before she knew, 
that she’d need to call it off? A bicyclist 
fumes by with a coach’s whistle clamped 
hard between his teeth, shrilling like a teakettle 
on the boil. I never meant, she says. 
But I thought, he replies. Two cabs almost 
collide; someone yells fuck in Farsi. 
I’m sorry, she says. The comforts 
of loneliness fall in like a bad platoon. 
The sky blurs—there’s a storm coming 
up or down. A lank cat slinks liquidly 
around a corner. How familiar
it feels to feel strange, hollower
than a bassoon. A rill of chill air
in the leaves. A car alarm. Hail.