Gerry LaFemina: Alphabet City

Avenues A through D, Lower East Side, NYC

After the ambulances left but
before the sun finally rose above Avenue
C, I walked toward Tompkins Square Park where the heroin-
dependent rockers slept, addled on benches, while
ex-punks huddled in their leather jackets
for the morning was still damp. One of them called out,

Gerry? What was I to do when I saw her, recognized
her hesitant familiar eyes. How could I have
imagined things would turn out this way when I'd call out her name -
Joanna - those sleepless nights of high school &
kept a photo of her deep into college. 
Longing has such a sense of history.

Morning was approaching in its colorful coat.
Not once those months of kissing her, had I wakened beside her, but
oh  - I'd wanted to. She was thinner & glanced away when I nodded
pigeons surrounded her bench but would take off
quickly with the first sudden movement or when the next squad car
revealed itself in flashers & sirens.

So what did I do? What could I do?
The three five dollar bills folded in my pocket, what
use were they to me? I gave them to her, she who'd once been
 beautiful. How
victorious I'd felt that first time I kissed her.

We didn't look at each other, nor did we look askance. I thought
 of the little
xiphoid syringes she might load with that money. This was my
 sin. Two
young black kids with dreadlocks walked by singing
Zion! Take me back to Zion! & I knew I'd never be saved. 

From Vanishing Horizon (Anhinga, 2011) by Gerry LaFemina. Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author.