Member Poem

You had it all wrong.

We sat in a wine bar
in the depths of Alphabet City,
damp and dark
as a subway platform
after a week of showers.
The quartet played smooth jazz
and the singer,
once famous,
now long past middle age—
distilled the loneliness and grief
of a hundred years
and gave us back
a bit of Nina and Billy.

We drank the deep red wine
of a sourish grape
and, as we had no future,
we talked of our shared past.
It had been ten years
and I thought you might be repentant.
But you told a story
of misfortune
and failed ventures—
the record shop in East Harlem,
the bookstore in Astoria.
You spoke heatedly
of the villainy of old friends—
people I knew well,
and of mine.
Shocked, silent and angry
I couldn’t believe how you lied
and lied.

I left you
in the neon glare
of that all-night diner
on First Avenue—
eggs seven ways for those
without a home
worth going to
and walked the city streets
in the emptiness of early morning.
The wind was cold and clarifying
and I thought,
maybe I had it all wrong.