Thanksgiving 2006

Brooklyn's too cold tonight
& all my friends are three years away.
My mother said that I could be anything
I wanted -- but I chose to live.
On the stoop of an old brownstone
a cigarette flares, then fades.
I walk to it: a razor
sharpened with silence.
His jawline etched in smoke.
The mouth where I reenter
this city. Stranger, palpable
echo, here is my hand, filled with blood thin
as a widow's tears. I am ready.
I am ready to be every animal
you leave behind.