On the red-eye train to the Big Apple valley of shadows
The loner rattling cackle had words with my groin
And the book in my lap lept off to the seat
And a ghost in a dream tore down its pages yet unseen
I saved the pieced-apart images of that night
I saved them in a nurturing place in my head
Like bottled embryos there in a goo-goo haze

In the Grand Central morning
Before all my little destinies awoke
Before I met my good old friend in Washington Square
Before the egg salad night at McSorely's pub
I swung open the gate and stood there alit
By a city with the strength of a million strong
Where no is answered by a blink of the eye

College years are the ultimate stew
Where freedom and searching and seeking
Bubble in tests of right and wrong
And force the exercise of unknown habits
Where faces adorn the shelves in your room
And one must decide, with fresh tools
How well they fit and how much they are worth

So when I returned from my vacation bliss
I took up school with all the right eagerness
I studied under trees and lamps and cigarettes
I balanced the energy with lust and despair
And by the stroke of my fortune
I brought home my new friend once again

At home where appropriateness and ambition
Form a tsunami-like religion
Where unsaid reasons make love to money
I met the brilliance and compulsion of my ancestry
With a gleaming scabbard filled with hope
It was like a successful grocery trip