No, not for Fifth Avenue or the suits
giving the homeless more **** than change.
This one's for Buffalo, the city above
and below the city.

Where we watched fireworks pop low
behind a Chinese restaurant's mustard frame
on the hood of my car contemplating
Wolfgang. Where, 20.3 miles away,
I saw two men holding hands, and I felt
whole. Where we could find a sit-down
dinner / no candles, but not everywhere
can be paradise / at 9:30. Where we tried
to make love in a bed too big for two
small people in this big, big world.
We're stray cats playing with locked
keys left in the ignition and a wire
hanger snake slithering through
the window seal. High moon,
we held hands, receipts, and ice cream
cones at Anderson's Crocs-behind-
the-counter-custard-and-roast-beef-
stand. We kept a gallon of lemon tea
in an ice pail as our centerpiece / king
suite. The Holiday Inn pool tasted
like ****, and boiled my contacts
like a fried egg.

But that's all gone now.
The fireworks, the dinner,
the sexless bed, the eggs.
All buried in Buffalo.