metropolis incarnate

words and photo by Stefania Fumo
(published in True Confessions II, Libros del Rojas, Buenos Aires 2007)

You’re so fierce, such a bitch sometimes too & I love you for it girlfriend, can we sit still for a minute? Hell no we’ve got places to go, the parties the people the glitz, never a penny to your name & we’re drawn to the flame, kisses like promises I make in spite of myself & I’m paying the price, tonight we’ll dance, because our city demands it, who’s going to end up bleeding on the ground first?

I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow when I get home you won’t believe it, his sick brown bed & the Sunday street wide & quiet under the white midtown sun, while the day unspools outside my windows: birds skim the house their wings opened like hands, everything is wild & in motion, & down in the garden the little girl in her tiny purple dress plays with a giant blue iridescent ball.

Your wisdom is always a reprieve & here’s what I learned, let me share it with you over raspberry mojitos made by the hot Argentine bartender you kissed last week: sex is knowledge is power & I adore every lover I ever had, from the two-night stands to the five-year romance, from the coked-up star to the boy from Texas with the gun tattooed on his clavicle, madness under fluorescent lights in the toilet at 4am & they’re banging on the door yelling at us to get out, making out like an orgy loaded on 3 dollar drinks at Siberia after the PJ Harvey show,

men adding up to the negative space around the figure of the one I truly want, will he give me that beautiful cock of his & not lie to me about anything? Not a chance just yet, how difficult it is to stay in the moment no matter what it contains: victories and defeats, anxiety & joy,
& the metropolis on early summer nights is genius, doing & undoing me, breaking my heart with its beauty & speed, & did I tell you on my way to the airport the other day I saw a Black cowboy on a horse next to the highway in Queens?

Have we ever experienced such a perfect evening, no this might be the ultimate, soft airs & the city around us like a jewel, like that year I was so in love & twilight came slowly down over Canal Street staining the buildings & all the Chinatown puddles were blue. Live frogs piled in brown cardboard boxes on the reeking pavement & we used to walk to the Pitt Street pool for a swim after work,

a breeze like a violet snake inside the ivy in the garden on Houston & Bowery where we sat on a bench, you wore your scarlet sarong the one that got you into the Sunday Style section & we talked about boys, visions, the pros & cons of clit piercing, & now the orange sun slants in all the way from the Hudson River staining the red brick wall of the church on Mulberry & these mean streets are ours more than ever girl, can you feel it?


Here we are discussing the usual over multiple cocktails in front of a million creatures & their entourage, love it that you ran that woman down, beat her up just because she dissed your sister, love it that you pushed that baby out your pussy & you're still you still whole 

& here we go again, after-hours on lower Broadway in a loft with a forest made of mylar growing from the ceiling, the divine boy who wants to be Scarlett O’Hara & the seriously good-looking German industrialist whose belly keeps brushing mine as we stand in the noisy throng fucking each other’s minds with art & politics,

buildings I’ve known for years slide by my cab at dawn looking different yet again & I like to swing my hips when I walk down the street in my badass dress, out at Coney Island the downtown mermaids scatter their sequins on the boardwalk after the parade as the sun sets behind the rocket on top of Frank & Paul’s hot dogs, the red light in the doorway at Indochine & that boy at Pangea with his angel mouth, 

it’s called love, & it belongs to us: the sunset wind moves on through melting the trees in the cemetery, we’re headed for our favorite table to watch the world go by, so please hide me inside your cute baby doll t-shirt, right next to your heart girlfriend, in this moment when everything is pitch-perfect, you & me together & ready for the night, the city & its purity, right here, right now, I’ve never been so happy. (SF)