June-like...

... Weather-wise, anyway. Not what we need right now. But who can really complain?

June 

Alex Dimitrov

There will never be more of summer 

than there is now. Walking alone 

through Union Square I am carrying flowers 

and the first rosé to a party where I’m expected. 

It’s Sunday and the trains run on time 

but today death feels so far, it’s impossible 

to go underground. I would like to say 

something to everyone I see (an entire 

city) but I’m unsure what it is yet. 

Each time I leave my apartment 

there’s at least one person crying, 

reading, or shouting after a stranger 

anywhere along my commute. 

It’s possible to be happy alone, 

I say out loud and to no one 

so it’s obvious, and now here 

in the middle of this poem. 

Rarely have I felt more charmed 

than on Ninth Street, watching a woman 

stop in the middle of the sidewalk 

to pull up her hair like it’s 

an emergency—and it is. 

People do know they’re alive. 

They hardly know what to do with themselves. 

I almost want to invite her with me 

but I’ve passed and yes it’d be crazy 

like trying to be a poet, trying to be anyone here. 

How do you continue to love New York, 

my friend who left for California asks me. 

It’s awful in the summer and winter, 

and spring and fall last maybe two weeks. 

This is true. It’s all true, of course, 

like my preference for difficult men 

which I had until recently 

because at last, for one summer 

the only difficulty I’m willing to imagine 

is walking through this first humid day 

with my hands full, not at all peaceful 

but entirely possible and real.

Buy the book: Love and Other Poems