nyc return

i couldn’t even
     keep
a week
          away.
my city, o my city:
     skyscrapers piercing clouds,
     a sense of having fallen down
     and crawling through the gutters.
couldn’t keep
          a week
     away.
my city new york, my manhattan
and my brooklyn. o my city:
     handwritten cardboard signs,
     homeless and cluttered and tagged;
     antagonizing always and often drugged.
my city new york, my city manhattan:
i could not stay away from you
     for more
          than six days at a time.
o my city.