Urban Mermaid (guest poet)

My old pal Emily Lisker posted this poem the other day. She has multiple websites and bloghs. this is from the Urban Mermaid, where she posts quotes and short poems and prose pieces, as well as the occasional recipe. Go check out her amazing paintings. She also has illustrated many children’s books and designed book covers for years. Now she is going it alone as a painter and playing music. We met in high school. she used to come over and we’d drink tea and make art or go into the city to museums and to buy cheap clothes at Unique and Canal Jeans. We lived for a while on Mott Street, back when it was still part Italian. Mob guys would pull up in big caddillacs and park on the sidewalk and go into the social clubs for espresso and anisette. She made Cafe Bustello and worked at a health food restaurant (I want to say The Big Apple Rest, but that was outside of Tuxedo, on Rt. 17, but it sure had an apple in tis name), while our friend Andy (who had the lease) worked as a lighting designer. The three of us crammed into the studio; two on the floor, one in the loft bed. I believe it was 140 dollars a month rent, but I’m not sure. We ate a lot of chow fun and lo mein from the cheap Chinese take out joints, or Indian on 6th St. There were also tangerines and grapes from the Italian fruit seller up the block. Nearby was the Bowery and CBGB’s. After that, Andy went to SUNY Purchase, Emily moved to Providence, and I went back to Larchmont to finish high school. Emily and I learned our art together. I still have a scar on my knee from a cut I got wiping out on a moped (ha!) in her driveway. A few years ago I visted her in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where she and Bill have a fabulous old house. Her studio was the same as always, paint splattered, with an old radio and (am I imaging this?) an ashtray. Emily was partial to cool hats, then as now.

Philippe Petit

Philippe Petit was the only news
that made it into the brick fortress
where I spent my childhood.
I was fascinated and amazed
by an acrobat performing
on a high wire strung
between the very tops
of the Twin Towers!
Not my Mother and Father,
those immovable pillars,
who were unaware of the acrobat
suspended between them.