he's got style for a gentile.

bigness

i’m taking in the black bigness
of the sky from a manhattan roof.

stars are breaking through it,
more than i imagined i’d see in the city.

i remember reading of some galactic
car crash, milky ways and andromedas.

millions of particles collide:
my fingers, her hair.

how many windows do you think
are in this city? she says.

unknowable, i say, still looking
up. something moves or doesn’t.

millions of particles collide:
the wind, my arms.

this isn’t how i imagined living
on an island would be, i say.

you want chinese? she says,
looking over the edge

where two rails meet at a corner,
her face lit with the street below.

millions of particles collide:
my mouth, her neck.

i wrap myself around her
like the black around the stars.

yes, i say, i’m hungry. i peer
over the rails and take in the neon.

the chinese place downstairs
is called good advice. we go there.