"said my muse to me, 'look in thy heart and write.'" -Philip Sidney
1 "i have a song to show you," i said in the late morning but did not play it until eleven that night. your eyes seemed blue when i met you i realized they are green or maybe temperamental. as the train swept past the neighborhoods and the forests in between them and the white delicate soot of the snow lifted in the air for a second, or two or three one couldn't see anything from the window on one side, this on the other, you one ethereal the other, just frozen rain
2 in the museum, the serious straight lines of malevich stared me down i walked towards the other side of the room when i turned around, the back of your head ash blonde and head tilted i looked at the art, then the floor, then the white walls you looking at your favorite painting you implied it was an honor and i touched your shoulder and called you the prettiest thing here. you smiled. it was just the truth. i said i would see my favorite painting but i don't know where it is you told me, with a laugh, you did not mind traveling i later found out Portrait of Maude Abrantes* is in Haifa.
3 "where do we go?" you asked. "good question. i don't know," figure out for yourself what i meant. The subways were all closed and only the 7 was running who gives a **** about the 7? i'd always said guess the joke was on me. walking to the station, whichever one we could find i looked up at you with snow dusted hair and frostbitten hands feeling something i hadn't felt in years "let's hop on a train and get off wherever" it took 15 minutes but the D train rolled in and up to 59th we went, then the E down to west 14th. We laughed at the incompetency of bureaucracy and hopped from the train onto the platform, watching the gap as we did.
4 there, on west 14th the Chelsea streets were wordless, sleeping in on a saturday night we walked past snowed in cars and i laughed at the ridiculousness of it all this is how badly i'd wanted to go to the city with you! but i didn't mind i walked a bit ahead turned around the beaux arts townhouses on either side of us strategically planned trees and a pair of lost gloves it was so quiet i couldn't hear my thoughts just my heart's rhythm in the station that night you had told me you wished i had a place in brooklyn to go back to "yeah, if we could even find a train that went there," i laughed.