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I whisk the jug with last night’s remaining coffee off the cold, warming pad, to pour a
cup. Echoing a motto from childhood, ‘don’t waste food.’ In a large family, of seven siblings
and grandmothers, and parents. Sipping cold coffee, I return to the room, Francine, sitting
crossed-legged between our pillows by the bed’s headboard bed, “Mon Petit Moineau ! Je n’
peut pas le gaspiller ! Je suppose que tu ne veux pas du café d’hier soir ? — My little
Sparrow! I can’t let it go to waste! I guess you don’t want last night’s coffee?”

As Francine speaks her mind, conjuring the Hydra head of my mind reaching out,
permeated the walls and ceilings to juxtaposed an eyesight from the rear lecture room. With
the professor on the estrade to the class’s last words. The professor’s slink demeanor across
the blackboard behind him. Three dimension architectural lines, crossed by a chalk flurry of
white strokes, radiates Cat, in his Sun. Yet hints at a cowering Scorpio in his Moon,
cherishing the dream he espouses — fixated on Francine. She emerges from a classroom
emptying from tablet-arm desks, a straggler amidst students’ ghosting egressing the side
door. She stops by Gaetano Pesce, to a Father and daughter intimacy. A shadow falls,
expressing her mind’s retreat from the window, to her memories, folding the shutters shut,
burying it deep within the recesses of her mind. Reverting my sight to her Indian pose,

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Our Minds’
crossed legs between our pillows of the night, from speaking of the professor’s theme, “The
beauty of the error.” As I’m doodling in my mind, the professor’s zodiac intertwines, buckling
in her Sun, reining in her wild Horse, and in her Moon sailing at the forecastle of her Aries.

As Francine pronounces, “Gaetano Pesce,” inflaming my heart, to a sitting jealousy,

with such reverence. The warm and cold flushes don’t matter, mentioning her boyfriend
shadowing against the backdrop of a bar tending to a row of patrons on stools and crowding
little round tables into the wee hour of the morning.

I cross the gapping archway into the kitchen. Pose the cup on the worktop, before with
Shiva’s arms, cabinet doors open. Punctuating a filter alongside the brick of coffee in a ritual
to the basket, scoop ground coffee and pour the granulation. In a swirl behind, the sink’s
faucet spout echo water filling the jug, I uncoil to the percolator’s cistern, echo the jug
spout, replenish, and lead to a switch’s flick. I walk away with my cup of cold coffee, at the
percolator’s soft sigh, telling, ‘I’m starting the coffee drips.’ set my patience with the
upcoming gargling, while chatting with Francine, waiting out with a restless in-and-out into
the galley kitchen, cheating on the percolator, I whisk the jug counting the trickles as a spout
of coffee fills one and the other cups. Replace the jug capturing the trickle, and with two
cups approach Francine, handing her coffee in a crystal up on a saucer. I backtrack to the
foot of the bed, kick a flexing knee beside me, seated in a comfortable twist, chatting with
Francine.

As the percolator gurgles with a few last huff before falling silent, announcing, ‘Your
coffee is ready!’ while we chat as I’m intimidated by a brief oxygen-stifling my space.
Seeming to live as Siamese twins, since her arrival last Friday. Monday morning, fueled by
caffeine, a thought crossed my mind, “All the way from France. When are you supposed to
start work?’

Francine in her jeans, plaid blouse, and leather jacket, stepping out of bed Francine,
Aries in her Sun, leading her Horse in Moon. She crawls off the bed, slips into her cowgirl
pointed boots. I stand up. Offering her the lead through the galley kitchen, and as I trail,
flick the warming pad switch off. She turns the key, pulling the door open, to a deep gray
benign blanket of clouds. With a hip-check from the worktop’s sharp corner, I spin to the
doorstep, counter spin, retrieving my keys, pulling the door close, locking up to step off. I
catch up to Francine with a clear set of fingers to her palm, and dance off. Rising to the top
of the driveway, a chilly sweeping wind from the interjection street, attempts to disrupt the
harmony of our steps. On 63rd Road we reach a shield of houses. glacial discontent winds
blast from the interstices across our path. We walk on, childish, into a weather trap, toward
the Stoic apartment blocks lining the street, fenestrated facades to dim lit scattered
windows. I remind myself, ‘That the subway offered nearby a refuge.’

Emerging from the street, Francine’s eyes fix on a workday’s busting expanse of
Queen’s Boulevard, its asphalt teeming with crisscrossing traffic. We turn the brick quoin,
after the fenestrated apartment facades, to the familiar sight of the bright Metro disk on the
guard railing to the hatchway. Descending the stairwell, veering into the tunneling walkway
to the platform. A draft rushes through the line of H-columns, calling me to the draft. The
train to a driver is flashed by the platform’s lights, and concedes to the rumbling wagons.
With cinematic windows, not early morning workmen, but rural suffocating commuters at a
peak hour waning. I guess in her silence, she’s studious of a little sparrow taking flight from
its nest on the day she’s bound to head off to work — The doors slide open. We step onboard
amid business attire and weary faces. Closing doors, to stand amid an airing morning rush.
Pulling away with windows’ dive into the underground darkness. Ride mirrored windows
reflect our images, intersperse flashing station platforms to a halt. exchanging passengers,
punctuating our course, until we step off. Emerging from the subway’s depths, Battery Park
in the guise of a few days earlier shattered skies, the Ocean wind buffet us, a blustery
welcome to the waterfront.

We enter by overgrown branches entangling the warped open gates, crossing the
dockyard’s beige cladding stretching to the waterfront, following the “Cruise” pointers. We
continued toward the gapping industrial doorway. dismissing the tourists in queue to board
the ferry, having visited Liberty Island days earlier. Entering the terminal, step through the
industrial corridor, to doubt in the vast shelter without signs, until a distant few figures
assure our course. By a glitch of filtering light, the figures vanished. In our approach, the
crack opens onto the waterside, broadening to a doorway’s filtering daylight spill on the
concrete floor, a welcoming path. Veering around the jamb, to a quay, docked by a gunwale
mounted by panes of glass and a flat roofed auditorium. Francine reaches the stern to a
boarding ramp. She crosses the gully, descending to the hull. Francine pauses, as I’m
impressed by boxed cycloramic strip windows a few inches above the water. With a few
scattered lone male sightseers and small children’s families, and couples spotting a cathedral
of vacant pews.

Francine’s eyesight in flight for the observation deck’s aisle, slips from underneath my
eyes, stretches her strides, taking my oxygen away, raises a cosmic orchestra echo in my
mind. I emerge from our pause, I hesitate, to rush up, or let go her way. As the lyrics
emerge from the far distant music, ‘I know I stand in line, Until you think you have the time,
To spend an evening with me, And if we go some place to dance, I know that there’s a
chance, You won’t be leaving with me, To spend an evening with me. . .’ In her strides, she
gazes through the strip windows, where the excited waters reflect the deep-gray skies.

Francine continues along the central aisle. As I’m verging on backtracking, my ego, the
relentless Gemini twins, a pang of guilt, wrestles Warthog in me, whispering, ‘Let her be!’
While the lyrics echo in my mind. Francine reached the end of the aisle, to a forecastle’s
door.

In a spurs doubt, I scold myself, ‘You may regret this,’ as forces haunt me, of families
in France entrusted guardian, as I’m fighting with myself, echoing, ‘Pity on her.’ when
Francine upholds her approach, a dozen rows before the forecastle door. By the ghost of her
reflection, against wavering clouds through the door shielding her from the weather.

Warring with the urge to leave, to break free, never to look back, my heart didn’t want
to know, and consciousness stepped up. ‘She’s alone here in the city!’ The thought of
abandoning her, filled me with a sense of dread. The wild horse in her, cornered, escapes
toward the starboard window.

From afar, I watch Francine pace, her gaze flitting across the beam of plastic seats.
Churning dark waters breaching surf’s wild scale, spying eyes peering on her outside. She
stops in the reflection of her ghost, back step and settles.

As I’m thinking of claiming a space a few rows behind her, my ego’s protest, leading to
an irreparable chasm. ‘Second-class guardian?’ I scoffed at myself. ‘That’s ridiculous!’

As Francine’s gaze withdraws from the strip windows on the edge of the water, drifting
across rows of empty rows of backrests. to the open space at stern, the captain’s commotion
by our earlier entry. Her confusing signals are tormenting me. ‘Don’t leave her — Not before
I understand what’s up?’

The weight of the gloomy weather mirrored, not only the hearty heaviness, sad at the
thought to bunk her, missing the chance to connect. I push past my ego’s reservations,
warning myself, ‘Better be wrong than sorry.’ I step through the footwell, past the empty
seats up to Francine. I settle in the chair beside her, keeping to myself, waiting out her blank
stare.

Afar aft, the engine muffles dozens of pistons roaring under-deck, reverberating
through the hull to our seats, as exhaust bubble sputters in the churning wake. Abreast,
along the dark footwell to empty beams of seats. The gunwale windowsill, to a boat’s fatigue,
as I glanced back at the dock. Widening the gap to a gentle drifting into a greater body of
excited waves. While Francine’s frizzly brown mane down her shoulders, halo’s her thoughts
in the pelting rain, Yael’s consciousness in the skies drumming the windowpanes for
attention.

Yael’s tears striated streams across the windowpane, to the approaching blurry
charcoal sketch of Brooklyn’s skyline. Yael’s consciousness calling a fitting thought inland to
Somers High School. The start of her week, immersing in the French language her class of
students.

Sadness tainted my heart, floundering in tatters, as I’m doodling with Francine beside
me on the glass-shielded tour boat wrestling with her inner being. I’m doodling through the
zodiacal forest. her Aries’s wild ram butting heads, chafing the confines of her comfortable
upbringing. With her Mustang’s yearning for freedom and open prairies, while lingering
behind a backdrop memory, Yael’s Moon in Leo, and Her Sun in Cat charismatic love. When
on a trans-continental flight, I took advantage of a sleepover in Paris. Promising Yael, I’ll
drop off her best wishes at the youth Jewish inn.

Francine’s gaze drifts away from the windowpane, her eyesight scanning through the
footwell past my leg. Rising to graceful steps around my knees. She prolongs the vacant row
of chairs. In her wake vacuum the oxygen out of me. She slips into the aisle, in silence
following her toward the weather claws striating down the forecastle door. She reaches the
handle, to a blizzard pushing the door, squeezing past Francine’s figure — a jalousie pounce
of Yael onto reaching me, ousting my warmth from my bomber jacket. Chilling to the bones,
I shriek to mind an old barn door to close. ‘Ooh no, My Little Sparrow!’ I frowned. ‘What are
you up to?’

As the music plays, Frank Sinatra, and Nancy’s duet echoing. My ego deflated. Francine
distances from the trickling door into the blustery weather. dwarfs by the vast expanse of
dark waters. A fleeting thought crosses my mind, ‘She’s crazy!’ The tour boat reverberation
carries the lyrics to mind, ‘… I practice every day, To find some clever lines to say.’

Aetheria mocking my hesitation, prodding me to uncoil from my seat. I pace Francine’s

path, zipping up my felt bomber jacket. At the door, I’m slapped in the face with an icicle
pelting drizzle. Angry, pulling the door shut behind me. The chill seeps under my jacket,
pushing the warmth through my collar.

I approach Francine as she comes to stand at the bow. A figurehead against swathes of
wind and drizzles. By a fluke, a bollard halts her step. Short of the taffrail, the spirit of the
ship. Her gaze upstream, across swathes of water, Etching stone pillars along the distant
shores.

I halted short of Francine, my body half shielded from the wind, breathing to her ear
without a shrug. The Fire of Francine’s consuming oxygen lingers. The drizzle’s icy pins
pelting my face over her shoulder. Before us, whimsical choppy waves rise and fall, their
whitecaps, winking fish's eyes up at Francine, with a sense Yael’s spying on us. Francine
sighs. “J’ai froid — I’m cold!” oxygen returns to fill my emptiness.

My hands pull out from the warm pockets of my jacket, reaching up to pinch the collar
and tug the zipper down. zealous with an icy blast, of a jealous spirit, billows my jacket in a
swoop, stealing my warmth. In a sweep, I rush clasping the lapels from my jacket, sailing off
my shoulders. I side step out the wind, to Francine’s silent endorsement of our Siamese body
closeness. My jacket felt wrapping her shoulders. I crisscross a lapel grip, Francine in a
cocoon hold, cherishing the jacket replenishing with body warmth, longing for this embrace
to last forever.

My head nestled in the hollow of Francine’s neck, her shoulder blades pressing my
chest against the backdrop of Yael’s jealousy swathes of gray clouds crouched over the body
of restless waters to our approach. The last chills ousted from my bomber jacket, to a fleece
warmth. While frameless, an innocent window reveals the bridge emerging, etching the haze
of silver-black gossamer screen valance at the sky and water line. cable hangers coming into
focus, top cable trimmed swags from the stone towers and anchored amid cities’ bustling
shores. meeting the trimmed concave deck straddling the dark turbulent waters.

I let go of my worries about Francine’s madness, without a wince in a wave of ice

needles. pricking my skin, with a swathe of clouds engulfing the Brooklyn Bridge. in
Francine’s realm. My mind transported into a gleaming street, where Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers dance through shimmering puddles. After, a cosmic orchestra transcends, streaming
through my body, and echoing. ‘I’m singin’ in the rain, Just singin’ in the rain,’ I hum along,
the lyrics, ‘What a glorious feelin’, I’m happy again, I’m laughing at clouds, So dark up
above, The sun’s in my heart. . .’

The slender deck to traffic launched across the span ashore to vanish amidst cracks
through jagged and cubic concrete forest. A defiant needle of pain, field in a spirit of
jealousy, urging to release Francine, and seek respite. But I dare not let go, embracing
hearty warmth for the unknowing chill. by Francine’s gaze, through the wide lens of her
absent camera. Still, as a figurehead, we duck under the deck. I scan the shores, locating
cable anchors rusting, as reported, in abutments holding the whole bridge under tension. We
drift underneath the deck, while at a giant’s height, bridging her world of design, and mine in
construction. Marveling the engineering of the exposed steel cross-beams with an array of
plates, leaf-spring flanges ornate with rivet head.

The shores emerge from the grip of dragging clouds. The loudspeaker announces, “…
Brooklyn…” Ahead, the oppressive atmosphere of spiritual jealousy lifts. Changing
announcements across Francine at the helm to Manhattan’s towers distancing. morph into
softer silhouettes, breathing against a brightening sky. Suburban houses fringe along,
conceding to a realm of dark elevations of whale-plunges into the waters. To sheer white
cliffs breaching the waters, in swags, diving back underwater, to raise rambling woods.
Dotted with quaint wooden cabins to the foreshore. The man’s voice to distant loudspeakers
brazening the peace, announcing, “… The Bronx . . .” Fast changing cabins straggling off, as
houses herding the cliff. As warehouses mingled, to saturate the shore, the shores shushed
the small industry away, returning green overgrowth blanket the shores in a vibrant
embrace.

Upstream, the turbulent waters appease, while I hang on, embracing Francine from
taking flight. The gray blanket turns translucent as the river bends inward. We drift around
the green, wooded curve, shaping the top end of Manhattan’s island. Squeezing the river into
a narrowing passage, releasing grip, for us to join a silty downstream traversing the massive
body of waters. The river left with the stroke of a yellow crayon against the horizon, while
we’re carried faster downstream. An asphalt path winds out of the woods and follows the
Hudson River. At the length, as if a hazy distant head, searches a crossing of the river. While
recalling, Francine and I, our path walking back from McDonald’s a few days earlier.

Beyond the iconic steel Brooklyn Bridge, and the generations of wrought iron arch
bridges, with see-through decks to a kinetic of traffic shadowing undercarriages. The George
Washington Bridge etches its path across the Hudson River, the span’s extremities blending
into the city’s shores. Francine and I sail closer, as traffic shadows, endless segmented
centipedes of vehicles scurrying across the double decks. To drift in the shadow of its span
high overhead, in the passing.

Needle-sharp pain lances through my lower back, But I maintain my grip on the lapels
of my bomber jacket, cocooning her. Fearing ‘My Little Sparrow’ fledgling to take flight while
adrift in her silence. Inland behind the shore thoroughfare trickling with traffic, after the
bridge’s imposing whale of a stone pillar obliterates the Manhattan shore, returning with a
rising skyline’s clustering skyscrapers. My memories, mirrored by the silver reflective sky
among the soft concrete jungle. When Yael lured me into the bustling crowds in Jacob K.
Javits Convention Center to exhibitors. The city’s crystal block gives way to the aircraft
carrier jutting into the body of water, obliterating in its shadow the pier. subconscious
triggering, Yael to mind, her defiant ‘I exist!’ flagrant reminders, climbing to the J.F.
Kennedy’s steel deck launchpad to a fighter jet poised to take off, a fortress afloat,
surpassing my mind’s grasp.

Though the boat cruise nears its end, my excruciating pain persists. The silver twin
towers, a pivot of my arrival in New York, crossing the underground mall, starting work for
Silhouette Drywall System, Inc.’s site office, to mind buckling by constant updates, never
seeing 3” clump of architectural blueprint of the World Financial Center’s “Block D” tower.
After which tower, drift toward the guardrail to the promenade rounding the tip of Battery
Park. mooring toward the wharf’s beige shelter, the boat squeezing the body of water until
docked. Francine paws my wrists, with a wet bar of soap, slips with a twist out of my jacket’s
embracing. She steps, presses the forecastle door open to the cabin. Short on her heels, I
catch the door, down the cabin aisle, to the aft, joining the crowds disembarking. Weaving
through the terminal shelter, we edge away from the crowd, for the light gaping side door.
We cross the dockyard, passing by a queue for the ferry to liberty island, tracing our steps
toward Broadway, to catch the subway.