Lower East Side (When You Were Alone)

You walk amongst the gridlocked cars
And weave between a thousand girls
Coming and going from bars in high heels

And you think about how these streets
Had the same names, but were somewhere else
On a family vacation when you were fourteen,
A remote glacier of memory

And you start to miss them, each of the girls,
Stampeding by in the reigns of conversation
As they vanish with the turn of a corner

And high above,
Through a lit apartment window
Appear the ceilings and moldings,
The corner of a frame-
Hung high on the wall
By someone you'll never meet

And you start to miss her too
As you stand at an intersection
Waiting for the light to change
With the sudden evidence of loneliness
Staring out from a window reflection

A hundred lamps,
A hundred chandeliers,
And the neon sign of a lighting shop
Illuminating your face, and the melting ice
Beneath the taxis on Delancey Street

(02/09)