Jon Sands never runs into the animals he’s scared of, but the list includes grizzly bears, hornets, scorpions, and bull sharks. He landed in New York City a few years ago; the animals there aren’t nearly as frightening as they seem. He is director of poetry and arts education programming at the Positive Health Project, a needle exchange center in Midtown Manhattan.
We followed her in, a stray, the fattest & first, the temple cat./ In a niche by the altar she crouches, watches them come: the/ mad parade we’d wanted, this troupe of heretics — the ass,/ alpaca, gyrfalcon — unbroken line of celebrants, creatures ...
Mother comes to me as I’m making honey cake, / measuring out sugar then whipping eggs. / Never mind that Mother left this earth / eighteen months earlier...
I miss things: swooping, diving, passionate voices/ in several African tongues, so far beyond me/ they might as well have beamed from the constellations.
Here’s the river I stepped in more than twice.// I can’t see them but I know the boats/ are going by in the sturdy fog...
And now you explore the hidden pockets and come up/ with a City Guide (in English) you picked up in Amsterdam./ Why did I keep that? Where were we going? But she’s/ not there to answer
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