Feldman at the Sock Hop

by P. Scott Cunningham

I’m a New Yorker, it’s impossible for a New Yorker to be an elitist.
                           -Morton Feldman

            In all things, Arleen,
the rendition’s what matters, paper lanterns
strung too low, a too-spiked punch bowl,
the threesome of freshmen singing
The Orioles’ “It’s Too Soon to Know,”
my arm as it circumnavigates half-
way across your back and pulls you closer,
the view of the gold cross around your neck,
the moon asking permission from the gym
to glow, that Greek vacation your parents took,
their bedroom forbidden and cavernous,
the sound of buttons as they lose their grip,
how your tongue says, “You can’t stay,”
            then seems to forget,

            how the sun arrives
with nowhere else to go, how carefully we strip
and wash the linen, sit naked on the balcony,
me smoking, you declaiming on the history
of the park, how the designer’s death between
the plan’s completion and the city’s review
allowed his vision to pass untinkered with,
hence the view, hence why I remember how
the mulberries were planted to frame the lake
and shade the bathers resting on its edge,
hence why I remember how the berries tasted—
I picked a few on the way to the train—
like every hour of their making measured
            and compressed.


P. Scott Cunningham is in the hot tub.