THIS TRIP SUSAN AND I DIDN’T FIND THE TIME TO GALLERY HOP. WE SAT IN OUR FAVORITE RESTAURANT ( NOT ALLOWED TO TELL THE NAME) AND DRANK MARTINIS, WENT TO MY READINGS AT NYU CASA ITALIANA AND THE CORNELIA STREET CAFE.

NYC IS ALWAYS AN EXPERIENCE…

A dragon: firescortched. In the tunnel=tail. The sidewalks=the scale, cracked, broken, catching Betty’s heels. Betty who is 90 wearing her small bone-colored shoes with pussy cat heels and pilgrim buckles. Sky scrapers like hives rise from eating too much. Humans? Professionals are its fuel. Young. Want to be. They’re everywhere. Apparent. Out front. Inside the restaurants at night. Night. Peopling in their going-out outfits, crawling on the dragon’s skin. Filling cracks. Checking text messages that allow them to be late–or not show up–for anything or everything. “I can’t make it. Sorry.”  Fragments of glitter, precious stones, jewels like Jessi whose celebration begins at dinner. Late: 10 or after. A long work day, week. OK. Yellow dresses. Smooth brows. Moving in a chatter about bosses, blogs, closets, and thinking of money. But Betty at 90, pressed and well-clipped, shined. Hard of hearing. Handbag matches her shoes. All new. Coming into the city through the tail. Born in the city. Lived in the city. Worked in the city. So was Susan=dark, itchy like dragon, sparks. Mouses. Yum. Noise, the dirt, the cracked sidewalks that grab little heels. Susan prints black on non-romantic paper. Photographer. Hot. Betty. She guards her sapphire ring and gold bracelet from boys with hoods and crotch dragging trousers. Beirut player. Everywhere: black, french, spanish, chinese. We walk to restaurant row; the belly of the dragon; a table with tablecloth; price fixed lunch. b.smith’s=black. Times square, rippled. Vulnerable. Old. The head, down below bombed and blinded. Haunches are columbia. smart people at the rear. Ha! Harlem on the other side. Betty eats the salmon. Me the black-cat fish. The young sleeping until two. Jessi is twenty two. Filling cracks. The dragon deprived of shut-eye. Not insomnia. Itching round analog. Everyone: “to sleep perchance to dream.” Can’t. Millions. Life. Keep the dragon up. Breathing dirty water. Catfish. The huddled the poor. The minks and rolls roys. The clipped careful hair. Talons=bridges. Snorting . Fighting. Working. Raising all those buildings of glass. See-thru hives. Don’t sneeze. Worker bees. American dragon living in mud. Walking on water. Cut-off. Betty who is 90 traveling into the dragon through the tail in her little shoes with pilgrim buckles. Jessi sleeping, dreaming of yellow dresses. The combustion point between desire and opportunity. Hear our wild dreams on cornelia street. Five minutes. The girls fall off their chairs when Susan tells them she is 66. No maternal instincts on the dragon. Call me. Wild dreams. Husband hunting in yellow. “I’m glad I don’t have to do that.” Money hunting. Cracked sidewalks. The itch. Betty’s little bone shoes. Yellow dresses. Snapshots of black. Worn out teeth. Slack tongue. Blind. Mother and father. Nuts. Nuts Nuts. Honeyed nuts. Imitation. Real. From shanghai=illegal. Shanghaied. Worn out. Stiff spine. Fiery, or not a dragon, right? Combustion point. Cracks.

Susan May Tell’s webpage www.susanmaytell.com