WASHINGTON SQUARE: APRIL 1ST.


ten to four walked in on the east side while
the west side’s for leaving when the subway’s coming
and I try to not decide what I’m writing anymore
saw some guy who I’m supposed to be friends with
and walked past him without a pleasantry, please
ominous is pretentious, I write, but the sky walks away
in degrees of humidity and the different colors of gray
and all the excavated mud smells its way to this bench.


at the point of geribaldi’s sigh he holds his sword
and turns his back on the whole boring conversation
we’re all trying to ignore each other, he remembers under
the green on the tree tips and the church steeple stands up
against the gray rain and brown gravel, the benches
just blend into the blandness of the rest of it since
spring’s still not bold enough to hold the handle of it yet.


school boys wander past with cold coffee cups
looking for the kind of girls who flick their cigarettes
talking across the country laughing with ashes in their eyes
waiting in scarves deciphering a lady who sits alone
she’s accidentally across the path with books and pencils
but no one’s got their eyes on the pages anymore
and our humid hair curls around our faces over damp jackets.


the plastic sunglasses sleep on her head, her eyes staring
and sometimes the words are written misspelled when you
look up there in the bell tower, the rows of railings are vacant
like the knee high iron fences stationary and infectious
that’s what its like here on april fool’s day bored by
the time keeper who sits constantly counting the minutes
to the next hour, secretly over her shoulder.


-nicole wallace.