To Desi as Joe as Smoky the Lover of 115th Street

Who are you
that your name comes
broken by the speeding cars along the East Side Drive
tumbling out of the concrete wall flowers
as I pass
Desi as Joe as Smoky the Lover of 115th Street?

There was nothing furtive about the swirls
of neon-bright magenta
prancing off your fingertips
like ideal selves
is the dream you
valued more
because you glanced over your shoulder
as you wrote
the first letter
undecided
its flourish
shaped like a question mark?

But there was nothing at all
to see over your shoulder
except my eyes in a passing tide of cars
wondering
if you wrote under a culvert
so the approaching storm around us
would not wash you away.

There was nothing at all
furtive
about your magenta scrawling
but I saw the bright sweat
running off your childhood’s face
as you glanced behind you
choosing that wall beneath a bridge
where so many others had written
before
that the colours merged into
one sunlit mosaic
face without name
decorating a highway
on the very edge of Manhattan.