We Happy Three

We drank red wine until our lips were plums
and our teeth were soft.
We moved like children and danced
like lazy lovers
until the streetlamps were our spotlights
and we were better than the band.
Williamsburg isn't all bad
so I made a pinky swear to the violinist
over his Malbec and through his eyeglasses.
This isn't a story with a beginning or an end.
We floated home and woke up friends;
left the violinist with the cellist
and grabbed a big yellow taxi right up to
our door.
It's better to leave things where they belong
and we belonged together. Singing and swaying;
fell asleep humming Bon Iver,
woke up to Devendra Banhart.
The death of us will be met with smiles
and holding arms or hands or sometimes faces
of violinists or friends.
We left the strangers in Brooklyn and
kept only our favorites together.
There's no beginning or end to this story
because it's the middle we find
ourselves in.

cigarettes and skittles
on the bridge jutting over the Hudson

the space between January and now is
9 or 3 months backwards or forward

it's the Irish in me that's silent
the Italian in me that's screaming

sweet and smoke while the reward for
capture goes up up up

disappear and they'll find you
on the bridge jutting over the water

Harlem is sudden and cops and ice cream
Europe is going and coming and fresh bread

life is in the water where it breaks
death is there too below the moving

some of my more confident parts are shy lately.
so I'll stretch my fingers and be gentle to my mouth.
words come when no one's looking.
I'm coaxing confidence with the promise of fair.

Amy Leigh Cutler on Facebook

Back in the City

Here we are,
perspiration kissing our young foreheads,
long lady legs crooked at the knee.

It is the hottest day of summer and
we raise the temperature with our tears,
and heavy questions.


We hold onto a finger or two
and let the moon make silver
on our wet faces.

Fairy friends remembering
summer loves; it's good
to have her back.

Life doesn't fall apart with us,
but walls press closer
and we listen in the heat.

found this in the vault.

14th street and 7th avenue, close to midnight. I'm walking down the stairs to wait for the 1 or 2 or 3 train, and I hear him before I see him. He's playing sharp and fast on his old old old violin, and despite the late hour after a long day, I can feel myself grin from ear to ear. God I love the sound of the violin. He's an old cuban man, smiling back at me and leaning into the moan and wail of his music. And he's walking toward me as he plays. Damnit I shouldn't have smiled. He pulls the violin away from himself and tells me in a thick accent that I am new pupil. I blink. He sets this gorgeous old wooden instrument under my chin and tilts my head down toward it. He bends and unbends my fingers until I am holding it right, and I let him. He points to the bow and tells me it is a knife. I don't understand. He repeats it. I shrug okay. He points to the violin and tells me that it is a piece of kentucky fried chicken. I don't understand. He says, watch me cut my chicken, and begins playing the violin under my chin exactly as if if were a piece of chicken and he was an angry carver. The sound is beautiful. He hands me the knife and tells me to do the same. I'm too enthralled to be self-conscious, so I begin to cut the antique chicken in front of me. He claps and tells the other people waiting that I am a natural. He sets my fingers up and has me play for a few minutes. He won't take any money from me, but tells me to get a guitar or a violin and he will teach me to play for free. He lives for music. He looks for people that might want to learn to play instruments. I offer him some food from work. He thanks me but tells me that his wife has packed him dinner already. Get that guitar, he tells me. The three train arrives and I think I'll look into it.