Hot Potato

Cats sex in the alley
They hiss and scratch
With groceries in my hands
The bags are full and heavy
Night lit by streetlight
and ice glows down below
Chills get to be too intimate
Does frost it know itself to be frigid?
I'm looking forward to
roasting my sweet potatoes

Round Trip

I ordered not one but
two Manhattans
from the Italian bartender
a few blocks from
the Brooklyn Bridge
I nursed them slowly
savoring sweet bourbon
like a lazy rain
whetting my earthly
appetite for love and lust
remembering fondly
Cinque Terre and
the warm Ligurian Sea

Evergreen

At the curbside in
the city lay cut
evergreens in winter
their collective scent
wafts up and down
the avenues singing
those spruce tree blues
at every street
this felled forrest
is ready for collection
by the mulching men