Cody Peach
28/M/The Bunker Club- Chelsea, NYC
In the bathroom mirror
between bouts of checking your own face
you inspected mine.
Running water and bubbling soap, we counted off the liquid seconds
between purity and filth.
I don’t know what it says
Overtipping the bathroom attendant like that?
Goth Johson:
26/Male/Graham Ave L- Brooklyn, NY
You were nodding off,
sweating in a chemical stupor when your good eye met mine
at first receptive and then, as if I reminded you of mainstream spite itself
you slunk into a haze of sylized disgust.
Fairweather Muldoone:
62/M/The Bar at Submercer- SoHo, NYC
You watched, disapprovingly, as I asked
for extra napkins from the cocktail waitress.
She was a third your age and twice your height, but you were convinced of it:
I was the fool in this scalene triangle
of services rendered
Ato Lupe:
49/M/Canal Street, NYC
“Rolex, Rolex” you said, and the sun pooled tremendous energy on the enamel of your forced grin.
I saw myself
reflected in your teeth
and I feigned blindness and felt shame and I still do.
S’Not Greene
19/M/Bitter End, L.E.S NYC
Funny running into you here. I knew your older brother who called you Mark.
When I ask about him you shrug and spit and roll your dilated eyes into your head and pretend to choke. Then you start choking for real, accidentally.
When you catch your breath I ask about your family’s labordoodle, Daisy.
“He’s good,” you say.
Reginald “Red” McGuire:
78/M/Penn Station, NYC
Halfway up the escalator where you held up the line
I was jogging, celebrating mechanical advantage
and the general expression of fung-elastic material
When our elbows banged
I felt your whole skeleton. Arthritic eyes took the trouble.
I didn’t want to run anymore, at least.
Jackson Jackson
48/M/Elizabeth St. NYC
The crosswalk turned white.
You made your fingers into an imaginary gun
and shot down pedestrians and laughed and looked at me as if to say “that’s funny or I’ll pretend to shoot you too.”
So I smiled
This is the closest I’ve ever been to understanding Realpolitik.
Miles McPhee
22/M/Union Square L, NYC
I heard you first
You were singing every sixth note
between the whine of subway breaks, whoosh of the doors.
Your atonal crooning might be a signifier: you just don’t care who stares.
But now that I am-
in the mirror of your disregard, I burn with vanity. How often
do I mumble along to obscure melodies no one else will hear?
