Gossip lives on top 
of a seven-floor walkup, 
Jimmy Choos clicking 
against chipped stairs. 

Trash day:
A chaise lounge slumped
like a martini olive: briny, 
something to linger on.

She paid two kids 
on the stoop twenty bucks 
and promised 
them a secret.

Their Knicks shirts damp 
with sweat, she kissed them both, 
twice on each cheek, lip gloss 
clinging to their skin. 

Saturdays. Hard work
smells like the Union Square 
Greenmarket. Sourdough,
heirlooms, nectarines

indented by her thumb, 
bruised, liquid rising
to the surface. She fingers
about a dozen until a Shibu

snaps at her ankles.
A small, woolly man tells her
the dog––named Miyazaki––
is normally friendly.

“I prefer German Shepherds.”
She also prefers cash,
the transaction. Her coffee
must have oat milk, a man

must be clean shaven.
The city is unforgiving, first 
impressions are watercolors:
one wrong stroke 

and ruined, the crumbling
stones of Belvedere Castle.
In January, she likes to watch 
the snow bury the bronze statue 

of Balto, that heroic sled dog
finally frozen. And her nectarines 
must be ripe, on the 
precipice of rot, 

black gnats landing 
on the pulpy flesh.
Festering like a wound
that never scabs over.