Füße: Umlauts, Eszetts, A Step
It was the year of the falling
cranes, the bedbug mattress trains, year
I was summoned Juror X, X-
1417 the Rexford
encroachment case 8-8-08
most auspicious day I stumbled
from courthouse fishbowl into squared
times, yoga mat rolled double V
double exposed and a bubble
floated by in battle with June’s
Solstice warped in soapy glare where
hundreds did downward dog and fresh
from Coney’s Mermaid Day Parade
I fought a station fire watched
a red moon rise over a roof
deck party in Harlem but not
the day Tim Russert died Friday
the 13th and The Hulk take two
debuted with M. Night Shylaman’s
first R film The Happening we
joked in the “what in the world is”
sense; 81 degrees I bought
Madonna tix at MSG
but today day of 8s it is
88 degrees a protest
parade snakes down 42nd
a trail of maroon and gold flags
and Tibetan monks but the voice
on the bullhorn American
leading the anti-China chant
the letters on his T-shirt bleed
“Genocide Olympics” but I
will marvel that night opening
ceremony unlike any
sight we have seen. It is noon, rare
that I venture through the hour
of the Naked Cowboy who half-
strums and half-struts fully poses
on his V-tipped island the chords
lined up like girls his double-lined
white briefs display his name in red
and blue which is to say today
patriot I stepped not away
but across the Neuhaus drone had
a wrap and watched lawyers haul briefs
in pant suits and ties, stilettos
dodge loafers, chin rolls swallow
collars like trees, curbs, and tourists
who need their own lane to crane neck
lenses or better yet Father
Duffy’s stairs where they can twist shoot
while the TCKTS booth lines snake arm-
like around them. It was here cabs
metronomed votes on a big screen,
the honks silenced by O’s win, cheers
carried on grate steam, this pie slice
Disneyfied where hos once roamed where
on the grayest day it feels like
noon from billboard glow. I buy Der
Spiegel. Three cats sit in loaf-of-
bread pose schwarz, grau, orangensaft
unfazed by the falling cranes. I
make for the train, run the gum-dimed
stairs. Step here, high noon in Times Square.
