30 Days Hath September 2016 | Day 29 | Night in Coney Island by Amanda Deutch

Night in Coney Island

 

Change, I wanted to say. Turn, I wanted to say. Twist

of fate, I wanted to say. Edge of history, I wanted to say. I said: ‘news.’

I said: ‘flash.’ I said: ‘extra’. . . extra . . . extra . . . extra . . .

 

 

Held in a window. Assigned to descend to the street. Take what

you want from here. There are thousands of voices

vouching for revolutions.There are waves

 

beyond this rhythm. Know this. There are tides

with different times. Slowly the sky unfolds

in ripples canopies waves. Take the sky cold soda &

 

water for a dollar one dollar one dollar water a chorus. You

as compared with the week before looking for

yourself through old streets—

 

A woman on the boardwalk glides by

with two roosters—one tucked under each arm—

dances to the rhythms of the Coney Island night sky and

 

first city stars: Polaris, Cassiopeia. This New York City vertebrae.

Memory. Nebulous Insomnia. Guy clicking gum chewing gum

boys drinking a bottle of screw top red from a plastic bag.

 

Night begins. A man with a t-shirt

that reads: Please Baby Please

Please Baby Please Please Please

 

 

 

Note: Epigraph from Vito Acconci’s The Red Tapes (1977)

 

 

Amanda Deutch’s poems have been published widely in journals online and in print. Recent  publications include: The Rumpus, 92Y Words We Live In, Revolver, Denver Quarterly, Manhattanville Review, and Barrow Street. Deutch is the author of six chapbooks, including Pull Yourself Together (dancing girl press, 2016) and Fit to Print (Harsimus Press, 2015) a chapbook anthology of 3 artists (Barbara Henry, Rosaire Appel, Amanda Deutch) who use The New York Times as inspiration. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and she has been awarded grants, fellowships and residencies from Footpaths to Creativity (Flores, Azores), Then Betsy Writer’s Room (Miami, Florida), Poets & Writers and NYFA. Deutch lives in Brooklyn, where she curates Parachute Literary Arts site-specific events and libraries. For more information about her curatorial & community arts work, check out www.ParachuteArts.org.