#thebk

Tells many short tales

About being a fool in love

I applied to your law school

By the Court appelates

2002

Got wait-listed. Then denied. 

I walked on Fulton Street, through the mall

My campus visit felt right

Then I moved to the Rotten Apple

I did a layover in Queensboro

I hit the Great North

Uptown

The Heights. The bachata in your eardrum

Piercing your dome

For the rest of your life

The Bronx. Staying grown.

Harlem, NY. You already know. 

I still wanted my model wife, though. 

I got starstruck in the 90s.

Walking the streets of Downtown. The Village. The LES. 

Tribeca. Soho. Chinatown. 

The punks. The bums. The soup kitchens. The doowop groups. 

The sartorial mavens. 

The rappers. 

The beatbox magicians

The Nikes. 

Then they moved away. They started rolling with you.

I started flirting with you. 

Crown Heights. East New York. Canarsie. Fort Greene.

Williamsburg. Bushwick. Sundays with my fam in Bed Stuy.

Coney Island funnel cakes.

Clinton Hill, when it was the finest chocolate.

Sunset Park bakeries. Red Hook pupusas. 

I even rode underneath the Verrazano 

A bicycle, sold to me by a Russian auctioneer

Shearing at Sheepshead Bay

The salt dusted my eyebrows

I left, but always came around.

In the summer.

In the spring.

I walked the Promenade with girlfriends

I worked at your firms by the Bridge.

You even romanced basketball away from New Jersey

Not that they noticed

Or cared

Then you kept torturing me

Weekends on Grand Street

Building with creatives

Fine. You had me at hello.