Renee Carlino

fell asleep to the sound of her practicing late into the night

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.’ ”

The love of my life was gone

He unfolded the paper and handed it to me.

To the Green-Eyed Lovebird:

Grace . . .”

“What the fuck happened, Matt?”

Grace . . .”

“What the fuck happened, Matt?”

remember looking out onto the canals and thinking about you, hoping you were safe.

We were lovers

We were friends

Before life changed

Before we were strangers

Do you still think of me?

—Joe

New York has an energy that takes root inside of you. Even a transplant like me gets to know the different boroughs, like they’re living, breathing organisms. There’s nowhere else like it. The city becomes a character in your life, a love you can’t take out of you. The mysteriously human element about this place can make you fall in love and break your heart at the same time. When you hear her sound, when you breathe in her scent, you share it with all the people walking beside you on the street, in the subway, or gazing from a tall building across Central Park. You know at once that you are alive, and that life is beautiful, precious, and fleeting. I think that’s why people in New York feel so connected to each other; the city harnesses this collective love and admiration.

Adults always say how complicated life gets as we age, but really, I think we just look for bigger challenges to overcome.