It would be a march
if not for the other thousands
undisciplined
kicking at the asphalt
with their heels
but this is Broadway
Broadway of Broadways
the endeavor
is more enmeshment
than carpentry
coming back down Broadway
empty-handed
(one should at least be making sets,
recording songs, processing commissions
letting everyone know
Manhattan is my Nelson Riddle
and you are the subject
of the subway squeals
& the falafel cookeries
& the cupcake holders
the homeless woman eating
a discarded bagel manages a smile
because it is not January
and she imagines herself the violet
in an Irving Berlin verse
Woman of new York women
on Broadway in July
left their romance novels
and tap-dance shoes behind,
hiked up their jerseys
to show another inch of thigh
if not for my eyes then whose
August 2011