City Delights

Hugh Cook

I rolled my tongue along

The hot geranium staining my mouth,

Nectar left by flower sorbet,

Watching my cousin’s blond height

In the French summer.

“As a child on the New York subway,

Knowing we were packed like rats

And smelled of shit,

I still loved the density of humanity.”

For the first time

I thought of myself as part

Of the sweating night; 

Cooling our bodies

On the stones of the street.

We lay with the city’s people,

So close we became an offering,

Buried by stars and symbols.

I looked back.

Once past the Cathedral’s throng

The people walked together,

Scraping cobbles older than

They will ever be.

Tonguing redness at my lip,

I watched the moon fall

On all of us walking back

From Catabasis,

Divulging through streets.