I dropped a bracelet in New York somewhere

On a chaotic street 

I looked to my wrist 

hoping for the glimmer 

of the metallic tickle of love 

but it was not there. 

Here’s what I think happened: 

A thought of you came to me 

and came again 

as it often does 

swelling my skin as if too long in a bath. 

And the clasp - 

unable to contain the elation 

because it is just metal of this earth 

drawn to a gravity which my thoughts defy 

- broke.  

It must have fallen somewhere between 23rd Street 

where Broadway crosses over 5th 

and births Madison,  

before the Avenue must carry on into the bedlam 

of Herald Square. 

Passion-stricken 

the little gift 

plummeted in an ecstatic haze 

and emitted a single, contented, heart-shaped moan 

which expanded itself between the frenetic objects of a city, 

siphoning all esprit in a nuclear wave 

before it ascended to a higher stratosphere  

and began a sonorous throb 

which I like to think lasted  

as a sublime glow 

long after  

the frenzy 

of you and me.