Sunday Morning in Manhattan

Today, I bought a box of raspberries for

just two dollars

from a fruit stand

on 51st and 3rd Avenue

while my mother dressed herself

for church one thousand miles away. I

walked past barred shop doors and

semi-deserted dog parks,

while popping unwashed raspberries into my mouth. The

sweet bursts coated my tongue

And juice snaked down my chin. How

like a vampire I must’ve looked, smiling

at the churchgoers

and daring them to bear witness to

this great liberated woman.

My last two dollars,

gone.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, in

one plastic container.

Funny how hours after you eat a raspberry that

sour taste lingers in your mouth.

You cannot get full off of memory, my

mother would have told me that.

I squirreled a seed away in my cheek pocket

to roll over my tongue when I got hungry again.

Four blocks west and eight blocks north to

Central Park and further, still, to 71st, I

stood in Strawberry Fields,

with the rest of my strange kin,

who can go wherever they want

whenever they please,

and their unleashed dogs,

who think they have the same freedom.

And I thought, it isn’t so bad

to be eating a box of raspberries

that I bought with my last two dollars and

to be standing near the very spot where

John Lennon died for our sins.