Haiku575's photostream  

Woody on the Upper West

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Uploaded on Aug 17, 2008

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In the bathroom at the Guggenheim

Feeling disconnected?

Someone switched the "on" label to say "no."

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Uploaded on Aug 17, 2008

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White Dress with Blue Hydrangeas

At 2am on the F train a girl
in a white dress with blue hydrangeas
sleeps fitfully.
She is not a New Yorker,
self-contained and dreaming,
like the women on either side.
She is a sailor who has lost her sea legs -
listing first to one side and then the other.

The Brit next to me leans forward, hands on knees,
and watches the girl closely.
He memorizes her garden party dress,
her dark tangled hair,
the bruise on her thin white arm that
looks like a horseshoe crab.

At Jay Street, the girl rises and walks
to another bank of seats
where an older Indian man sits alone.
She asks him something and he smiles politely.
She sits next to him, and then
leans her head on his shoulder.
A tired, treasured prom date.

The Brit, I imagine, is crestfallen
when he gets off at the next stop.
And I can't take my eyes off the new couple -
the older man who now sits properly upright,
the girl who now sleeps with a smile.

I take a photograph of them,
perhaps because I like the composition,
or because I want to tell the story later,
or because I want to protect her.

At 4th Avenue, the girl wakes and says goodbye.
When it is my turn to wait for the doors to open,
the older man look deeply into my eyes.
His gaze says:
You,
you who took the photograph,
I am innocent.
I am as innocent as you.

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Uploaded on Aug 15, 2008

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Stickman

Seen in DUMBO

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Uploaded on Aug 14, 2008

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