RI DAILY

Manhattan's little, quieter island and beyond

Island insights that go beyond the tram.

RI DAILY

Manhattan's little, quieter island and beyond

Reporting Roosevelt Island since sunrise.

Crazy Suzanne – Poetry

Summer day, late afternoon, Crazy Suzanne appears at my door. “Are my tits getting bigger?” she wonders, raising her shirt up to her shoulders. Never having made their acquaintance before, I was at a loss but I looked anyway. Another...

Poetry The Writing Life
adult blouse body bra
Summer day, late afternoon, 
Crazy Suzanne appears at my door.
“Are my tits getting bigger?” she wonders,
raising her shirt up to her shoulders.

Never having made their acquaintance before,
I was at a loss but I looked anyway.

Another time, another season,
another person,
I’d have invited her inside
for further discussions,
but this was Crazy Suzanne.
and while her zipper might come down,
her blue jeans never would.
We had a name for that.

I met Suzanne because, on a crowded sidewalk,
she resembled my hippie wife, 
in a washed-out kind of way,
reminding me of better times
lost and fading into harsher truths.

Up close, the resemblance lessened
like a photo enlarged so much
it flattened until no hippie remained.

Crazy Suzanne was a nurse.
She lived upstairs from the funeral home
and sometimes helped out.
Nurse by day, diener by night.
I fell for her for around 15 minutes,
then pretended, tried to believe.

There were lessons.
When the past calls you back,
stay where you are.
The past is past
and you can never go there.
Second, why lust for something
so long after its sell-by date?

But it might’ve been worse.
She might’ve let her jeans
slide down with her zipper
and everything else trying
not to drown in Nixon’s America.
Then, where the fuck would we be?
Can the Lawsuit Reach the Stacks in Time?

Can the Lawsuit Reach the Stacks in Time?

Residents have spent months asking City and State agencies to show why the Roosevelt Island Steam Plant must be demolished. Meetings produced promises. The CAG produced more process.

The underlying record remains largely hidden. Now two residents have taken the question somewhere government cannot manage quite as easily: a courtroom.

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