Brian Le Lay has spent the past year living in New Jersey, Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, and Louisville KY. He has recently returned to New Jersey.
Denial in a Walk-in Shower Above New York City
By Brian Le Lay
One month after you didn’t come home,
The night before the boys from Harlem
Played the bagpipes in Central Park
I cried in the walk-in shower
Of a New York City hotel room
We sat in folding chairs beneath a pavilion,
And the mayor spoke, a slew
Of superlatives I didn’t understand
And the president of your company cried
And everyone cried, but me.
I refused to accept you’d been murdered.
You must have been wandering Manhattan,
The whites of your eyes turned yellow,
Struck by amnesia, concussion as from a falling rafter
Assumed a new identity, maybe
Hanging from the back of a trash truck
Or delivering Chinese food on a bicycle
But any day you were bound to remember
Who you were and hop the 197 into town
And there is a thing
With people so special
That Earth, or God,
Does not want us
To keep them very long
I think this is a rotten trick.
And I am still waiting.
