It’s snowing on Halloween.
I’m a cowboy and you’re a Zombie Mister Rogers. 
I nearly broke my horse-on-a-stick at some point, on your roof. Manhattan in the distance.   

I’d slipped on some ice, I think. I think I’d called him Sugarlips, the horse I mean,
And at some point you’d asked if I knew any of Andreas Gursky’s work,   
That part I always knew.   

Sometime later nearer towards December we’re paper-bagging Sapporo’s and you’re teaching me the meaning of ‘schmear,’ according to what’s-her-name at Bagelsmith
(It’s more than just a serving on the bagel, it’s the heaping of the cream, a fucking pint, that’s the point) 
As you say we’re here and crush your camel blue into the dark,

The
Cherry lights your eyes,   

I take it in and at once I know I’ve known it all immediately, me
But with you
Here,
At Grand Ferry Park.   

We’d sit at our bench at the time
And all of the time,
Before the sugar factory became a place for the yupsters to walk their children and pencil-dick towers shafted into the Autumn sky and redefined what we’d know from eight years ago,
Drunk love in those moments, 
Hands held but together always somber, as though between our fingers, within the sweat atop the webbing, the preservation of what we knew would soon become extinct,
Come September at JFK,
Where we’d hug and mourn the last giraffe of Brooklyn.   

It’s been a year since I’ve been back, 
I’m back again but with an N95 shipped to my place in Hollywood from my friend out in Albuquerque.     

At first when I’d arrived, I sat on the rocks that overlooked the river,
And the bridge, by our spot in its exactness, 
The thunder of the subway trains trudging towards Manhattan. 
The Hasids with their payot sidelocks lapping in the wind, lapsing waves like curtains over the East River (while their wives with Rebooks walk the bike lane up above) 
Shoo themselves away 
For an all-black wedding parading out of Crown Heights (or so they thought) setting up between the bench that was always ours (or so I thought)
And the other one we never needed. 

Matrimony for them,
But with a view of the Baruch Houses that at night transformed into a heaven made of halogen, laid out just for us along the horizon.    

It was brief,  
A seven minute affair, they kissed and all clapped as ferries kept on schedule, and soyboy queer boys devoid of attention raise their voices as they talk into their phones, 
Demanding photos of spreadsheets for the influencers they track all day on Sundays, 
Yeah,
A word for them comes into mind, I won’t say it but it’s fucking
Fathomable. You know which word I mean.   

The wedding leaves with no remaining signs of the Hasids.   

The other seat over there has a mother now,
Watching over her Albanian granddaughter, a Maltese in some Chinatown Gucci in September on the rocks, barking at barnacle. 
Under the trees behind me, 
Muslims salat al-‘asr-ing by the smoke stacks from yesteryear towards tomorrow’s Sun, 
Soyboy unhappy with his life has gone as well, god-willing on his end he’s sniffing out his second frozen marg, née rosé, 
Hopefully another stranger looks his way when he’s on his phone, He can raise his voice again and make it count, you know (feel good).  

The wedding party of 20 wanders onto Kent.   

Sea planes landing, I wish they’d field goal through the ConEd towers on 14th (in Manhattan), 
And with the parties gone, I take my chance and take our seat, I’m looking out and, God, 
How skylines change and maybe this one isn’t mine anymore.    

It’s my first Sunday back in over a year and
Walking past 224, Metropolitan, 
And recollecting how all it took was just one glance and one smile to nod and carry on, 
I think about the things people say about time, I think they may be true.   

Weddings where my ass dreamed of always being, 
The potentiality of this bench just being mine forever now and onward makes no sense to me, but
I’ll always say I’m very good at sharing
Just don’t get me started on beaches, those are mine for good.   As I type the water breaks on littered rock, a sailboat wanders by,
I heard a train derailed today, an A, it caused delays. 
It’s the first Sunday that I’m back and I remember you without the pining or the pain, I guess the good work’s done or at least the bad times over, 
Putting you to rest now knowing for once and for always,
To cherish you but once a year like this counts for all the years before. 
Missing you was my immortality, 
But like skylines all things fade,
Usually for something larger that crumbles just the same.