The Governor's Island Ferry is dramatic,
like a slow-moving poem with a rusty hull
and no punchline. But today,
it is fucking perfect—
wind in my mouth, the setting sun doing cartwheels
on the East River, and my friends,
my beautiful, loud, word-drunk friends,
are back, right behind me.
We’re all on the upper deck
talking about who’s divorcing who
and whose 10th chapbook got picked up
and how this year someone brought a harp
(for real, a big ol' harp!),
and it feels like the city has been
saving this weather just for us,
like a secret it forgot to whisper
the last seven summers.
Brian says something funny,
and I almost fall overboard laughing,
and it’s not lost on me
how good it feels to almost perish laughing
instead of falling over from treatment.
The poems today were messy and brave
and probably overshort,
with at least one haiku
about cake, cocaine or late capitalism,
and someone cried at the open mic
and we all clapped like lunatics
because they made it. We all did.
Mike brought me up
on the White Horse stage like a brother
and we hugged because we are both afraid,
because it has been so long for both of us,
and before I read,
I touch on what happened,
just say something like:
"It has been several lifetimes since
I have been on this stage,
and after just beating cancer,
here’s a poem I wrote
after seeing a pigeon land
on my IV pole.”
And I hope the audience
caught the quiet little echo of survival
tucked between the silly lines.
Later, some brilliant Bimbo hands me scavenger hunt;
someone else hands me a beer but I turn it down;
a frisbee hits be in the belly;
Thomas finds me and I feel forgiven;
and then Eileen fucking Myles,
and then Anne fucking Waldman!
Holy hell, Hashem, it’s good to be back.
See ya next year!