Hypocri-city

The city is an ugly place

I saw a rat in Central Park

And what’s worse is

There’s a man next to me on the subway

Who rejects deodorant from his repertoire.

There is piss on the corners

In the streets

On the plants

But in the city’s defense

I see a man

With a baby

And the baby’s cute face

Which upon closer observation

Is caked over with snot

—a disgrace.

I close my eyes

Imagining a meadow or some place

Better than the city

And I wait and I wait

My thoughts are disrupted

With a honk and a yell

“Man I’m driving—what the hell?’

After all

The rats in the park were just trying to smell

The small flowers that grow in the shapes of a bell

and the man on the subway just had to tell

me of the time that he just about fell

in love with a woman who he met in the street

after she stepped in urine—and with that on their feet

they danced all night to their loving heart beats

After dating and marriage, they did what lovers do

And had not just one child, but two

It was this very day the first babe slept in

Keeping her mother up in their apartment

And the father with the second

Took him

On the subway for the very first time

Where he cried and he cried

Until his eyes

Rested on his mother’s again

And let out a sigh.

At least this is what I imagine to be true

It explains the ugly, but it gives me hope

That beauty exists in this city too.