New Material

Frank O’Hara wouldn't shut up about New York
and Rachmaninoff and ashtrays, but I live
in Boston and can't play an instrument
and don't smoke, so instead I'm always going on
about sunlight filling subway cars as the train
crawls over the bridge, and leaves brushing against
each other like strands of hair, and hands that I've
pretended to touch through the screen. I won't
deny that it gets old, wears thin like a coat
stubbornly shouldered through regime collapse
and climate change and lost buttons. The preacher
of Harvard Square knows better than anyone
how hard it is to come by new material.
Each day he reads different Bible verses,
throat pealing like a church bell, and no one listens.

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