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IN NEW YORK
by Barbara Eknoian
(based on a passage from Chapter 7 in The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy)

those grand museums,
libraries, plays, concerts
beckoned me with promises.
When I couldn’t sleep,
when the noise of traffic rose up,
I tried to jog to Brooklyn,
but only made it to the Bowery,
where I stepped over bums
who slept in vestibules of lamp shops.
And, in the darkness, surprised myself
by entering the flower district,
trucks unloading  fragrant cargoes
of orchids,  lilies and roses.
At its best, New York,
a city of accidental epiphanies.