Katy Lederer
Parable of TImes Square

We meet in this country.  Beneath the damp light

at the world-famous fair, where life is meaningful

  

and dreadful.  The conglomerates show off their

wares, which will help us when we’re sick of work

  

and heading for the train.  I hate to be alone.

The solitude of Brooklyn.  But outside, now framed

  

by the window, a couple.  They stare at one another

over pork chops and beer.  I call you on the telephone.

  

I call to hear your muffled voice.  "People aren’t

the be-all and end-all of one another’s lives," you say.

  

Between these tender hemispheres, in the space

of our gender, the divine reaches down like a hook.

  

Must it be such a hardship, then, to hoist ourselves

up to the conscious interior?  Are we so cleanly spoken,

  

here, that all has been said by two bodies, alone

in the dark, their brains electrified? Their tongues

  

 in one another’s mouths?

 
Found In Volume 34, No. 02
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  • Katy Lederer
Katy Lederer
About the Author
Katy Lederer is the author of the poetry collection Winter Sex (Verse Press, 2002) and the memoir Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers (Crown, 2003).  She currently lives in Manhattan, where she works for a quantitative trading firm.