Intimacy

-Jen Levitt

On the morning of the new Q train, we passed

a woman’s body slumped against a wall. 

White liquid poured from her mouth like snow, 

until the paramedics showed up, for which 

everyone was grateful. In my mind I was busy

riding a Palomino through a forest, solving 

an equation in air. My thoughts hard & soft, 

a terrain. All week I wanted to talk to you 

about this small sad thing, the woman’s purse 

at her side, hands trembling like my horse

at the stream while we looked & kept walking, 

these details, which make up a poem, a life, 

& could help you know me. All this time, 

I wanted you to understand the emptying in me, 

below the earth, where someone was singing.