Issue 13, November 1997
Fanny-Min Becker - Poem Sequence

NYC Album

I covered Manhatten
With my footsteps
Even at nightly hours
Trusting my feelers
Ignoring warnings
And got nothing bad 
But a big blister

His light-brown palm
At the drugstore corner
His shiny white teeth
An old man’s smile  
Of ‘God bless you’
Even before I put down one buck

Gold standpipes
Silver standpipes
Copper standpipes
Brazen me
Sat on a golden one

Mini domes and arches
Elevated to the top 
Asking for respect equal to Heaven
To see them you have to look up

At Union Square I met Gandhi
With a string of flowers around his neck

And Garibaldi at Washington Square
On his head two visiting doves

Had it not been for you
I would have missed Hotel Plaza
And 
That star above

No molesting hand
No frightening scream

On moonlit skating rink
Waltzing people
Music

Life

Never knew there would be
So many of them hanging
Right outside my porthole
37,000 feet high
Millions of them
Twinkling 'Sleep tight'

Virginity surrendered
To Manhattan
A gentle pierce
No pain
No pain at all