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.