Where Are You From?

I decide not to tell her
I come from the New York
where too many people I once knew
are now nothing more than dust:
scattered in fields, dumped in oceans, resting on mantle-tops,
or buried, rotting, marked only by names and artificial quotes
engraved in concrete blocks absent of flowers.
 
I decide not to tell her
I come from the New York
where those
who twisted knives in stomachs
or shot bullets through skulls
with impeccable aim I might add (if of course I told her)
are now free to buy their drugs
or prostitutes,
or expensive chains and sneakers,
or whatever it is killers buy;
while the cops
climb chain link fences to arrest teenagers for smoking weed,
or follow fathers home from work to write speeding tickets,
or sit around to eat donuts,
or whatever it is cops do.
 
Instead, I decide to tell her
I am from the New York
where on subways I meet Chileans
who wear huge smiles
as they play songs on charangos
made of armadillo shells.
I tell her
I am from the New York
where I meet Puerto Rican families
who carry fishing poles to Orchard Beach
drinking beers as their kids build sand castles
more elaborate than the homes they live in.
I tell her
I am from the New York
where I meet a homeless man
who makes sculptures
out of anything he can find
because that is his "passion."
 
And you know what she tells me?
She tells me
"The next time someone asks where you're from,
you can tell them you live in the New York
where you meet a twenty-six year old
blonde girl from Moscow
who can read right through you,
and this way, you can continue
to be as opaque as fogged glass
and avoid revealing anything about
where you are from."
 
It was then that I knew
I would marry this girl
whose accent annoyed me.


(Written for MadameLavender's Competition  "Pick A List--II")