by Simone Muench

Stretched in quotation marks, Times Square flares aortic in the bee-
bronzed dark. Broadcast of vendors & shoulders bustling with cannon
percussion in the retinal ring out of peignoir signage. A harmony
of women swim in the aquarium-fluorescence, unlined linen

dresses translucent beneath the yellow & claret lights. Compass
of this square fizzied orange soda sadness. Like gold teeth submerged
in a glass of green tea, a scrim between the lenticular & surreal–noble gas
marquees shift in the drizzle from flamingo to bordeaux, converge

with human activity, an arcade for the conspicuously need-to-be-kissed.
But digital billboards of nightgowns won’t hold us up when tenderness
turns to concept & is backswept from view. No more aerialist
tricks to resist, so the conductor retires to the wilderness

while the city smoke-stiched with bluing alleys writes its own discography
as its lights buzz out a new alphabet, divine a new topography.