You can smell things so much stronger when its hot out. Jet exhaust, garbage, and old taxi leather. If it's as hot as it is today you can almost taste it. I've never flown alone before, so after two hours on the train I think maybe I'll take it a few stops further. Maybe I can savor this freedom for a little while longer. Alone in the Bronx sweat rises from the pavement. It's hard to breath. I've talked to her almost every night. We shared our deepest fears with one another. Basked in each other's flaws. Marveled in the darkness at the bright images displayed on our monitors. Scattered pixels approximate her skin, her hair, her eyes - always looking down, never connected. I asked her to look at the camera - for that moment it felt like heroin. We took turns looking at the lens so that the other could get their fix.

Golden liquid. The crackle of ice against glass. Polyrhythms set the tempo of the evening. Jazz is like tangy steel-cold cherries As they gush with salt and spice. The switch rocks backwards and Red hot, the tubes begin to glow. 1969: The humbucker twang Finds its home in tweed tonight. Patent leather shoes Keeping time himself at bay. And aught without a word - like the prodigal son - A wandering riff comes home. Like a weary levy breaks Applause becomes the room. For nothing quite turns a phrase Like steel and cherry hardwood.

I miss the darkness . Even when I close my eyes the world seems to find its way back in. Walking past the liquor store my brow is beaten by the caustic yellow hum of burning sodium vapor. A deep crimson sea recedes into the haunted lowlands of the cosmopolitan skyline. Everything is revealed to the waning curiosity of my tired eyes. A fistful of stars suddenly reminds me of my place among them. Catching my breath for a moment, I wonder just how thin a veil this truly is.

A black rain falls in the highland village where I grew up. It turns the clay into a bowl of soup that warms the first sprouts of grass as they shoot upward overnight, thawing their fingers in the warm steam of midmorning light.