The Omnipresent Taxicab

(for JoAnna)

Human interaction is hard to undertake
When you are looking out the taxicab window

Onto lower Manhattan a-twinkle with rain

(When your heart is full
Of tender things which cannot be said

For fear perhaps of dislodging
The beads of new water

Bathing concrete and leaf and flesh all alike

Until the quality of being wet
Is just another miraculous commonality);

These are your thoughts
Riding in the omnipresent taxicab

Over the Williamsburg bridge;
And these are your feelings

Dying certain, miniature deaths
As they reach your face because,

Try as you might, you can scarcely undertake
To comment on the perfect, fragile map

Of a million shining lights with the instrument
Of your human mouth.