If New York has taught me anything
it’s indifference. I have an eternal feeling
and forget it in a week. Nothing lasts.
I walk and am overcome by oranges
piled high in a cart. By kids playing street ball
in Tompkins while the small park dogs cheer.
Getting caught up in a stranger with a crow tattoo
or a butcher, unloading rosy carcasses on 9th Street.
We all roll on, each with our little tragedies,
our shrunken attentions. At Lucien,
I order half a dream chicken, I mean really
the severed bird of my dreams, and accidentally dip
my black hair in the triangle of my neighbor’s
martini glass. I smell like vermouth for the evening
and the next day bargain for fifty samosas
at the deli, stack them in my freezer
until it looks like my childhood.
And there are paintings, yellow and otherwise.
And a carton of chucked cigarettes, Vogues,
squashed by a foot on the street. Indifference is not
the absence of care. It’s the enlargement of so much life
that it dulls heart song, even sweet you.
My interiority has nothing on this city.
You and I? We’re nothing here.
I answer a text with my voice.
You barely make out my laugh for a siren, a couple
decoupling, a fire burning a church into its ruin.
I do a line and look upon the gold lights and dark rivers
while someone swims in a bathtub on a floor above.
Day comes. I carry on, irrelevant. I’m carried on.
如果紐約教給了我什麽，
那就是冷漠。我有過一種永恒的感覺，
卻在一周內將它拋諸腦後。沒有什麽會長久。
我漫步時，被一車高高堆起的橙子吸引，
孩子們在湯普金斯廣場打街球，
小公園里的狗在旁邊起哄。
我注意到一個陌生人身上的烏鴉紋身，
或者第九街上卸下一片片粉紅色肉塊的屠夫。
我們都在各自繼續前行，帶著自己微不足道的悲劇，
和日益萎縮的注意力。在Lucien餐廳，
我點了半只夢之雞，真的，
那只夢中被斬斷的鳥。而我不小心把
黑發沾進了鄰桌馬提尼杯中的
三角形杯沿。那晚，我身上帶著苦艾酒的味道，
第二天，我在熟食店討價還價，買了五十個咖喱角，
堆滿冰箱，直到它看起來像我的童年。
還有那些畫作，黃色的，或者其他色調的。
還有一盒被丟棄的香煙，Vogue牌，
被人踩扁在街頭。冷漠並非
不在乎，而是生命的無限膨脹，
讓心靈之歌變得遲鈍，甚至包括對你那份甜美的愛。
我的內心遠遠無法與這座城市相比。
你和我？在這里，我們什麽也不是。
我用語音回覆短信，
你幾乎聽不見我的笑聲，淹沒在警笛聲中，
在情侶分手的喧囂里，在一座教堂被火焚毀的廢墟間。
我吸了一行白粉，眺望金色的燈光和漆黑的河流，
而樓上的人在浴缸里遊泳。
天亮了。我繼續生活，無關緊要。我被生活推著前行。