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Heaven in the Bad Borough
by Sara Lier
When you die in Brooklyn,
you’re already running late
to a party started in 1909
by an obscure Democratic candidate
who bribed his way into office
and died in a drinking binge 2 weeks
later. (They said it was politics
or his mother never taught him
discretion.) When you die in Brooklyn,
he buys you your first beer, then takes
you to see the fire eaters,
illusionists, and the tattooed girl
who turns out to be the one
you fell in love with that spring
of 1967 (or was it ’68?), just before
she caught a plague sleeping in draugh-
ty warehouses by the waterfront,
and you went on and fell for
an art school kid that September, forgot how
beautiful she was with those snakes
up her legs, and the apple tree
calligraphied on the tendons of her neck,
bearing fruit near her mouth like it’s the only
living thing in the whole damn dusty city.
When you die in Brooklyn,
you’ll wish you’d told her that.
When you die in Brooklyn, the first kiss
you get after is moist and
tastes like basement poker games
and sailor gossip. It’ll make you superstitious,
it’ll make you sad, it’ll make you
buy another round, then dizzy your way
past the fortune-teller stalls, where
you give up your last 2 coins
to hear them all say: you’re dead,
you’re here, and tomorrow
you will wake up drymouthed on a pier
you thought burned down a century ago.
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