(revised)

Pilled to sleep. No dreams. Just
the barely audible noise of traffic lights
switching from red to green in the middle of the night.
I awaken. 8:26 a.m. Faded
yellow gladiolas , the wallpaper.
Like Rosa’s aunt
exiting the storefront Pentecostal church, things disappear.
In the apartment next to hers, her sister keeps
a ukulele stuffed in a duffelbag under the bed
and also a memory
of the tiny San Pedrito bird flying
red-goateed from tree to tree in the rainforest
while here in the Baby Site Electronics Emporium
on 34th midtown, the bearded Hasid Jew
in blue trenchcoat buys a boombox. What
nuance of the evening news will he listen for?
I walk away, toward Harlem, toward
something I believe in but can’t explain.
There it is. A smokeshop with a lottery sign announcing
“16 Ways to Win Instant Cash.”
Behind the sign, in the back on the shelf:
piles of Kodak film, some eventually to be transported
in suitcases to India, Somalia, Istanbul.
I buy a bunch of rolls, load one
into my ancient Miranda Sensorex, start
ordering everyone I see to say cheese into the lens

snap: photo of a woman’s vagina
with a terse note inside saying
squirt elsewhere, please

snap: photo of men with shovels on a rivershore;
they’ve unearthed a big coffin that contains
the cherrytree Old Georgie
sure as all hell cut down

snap: photo of people loitering near lemon crates
in front of Rosario’s Market on an island that theoretically still exists further south

snap: photo of a toolbattered hand
opening and closing
slowly in the dark