We Got Out Just in Time

Shrouded, trapped by Local Law 11, patches forced upon its iron cheeks, pale crackling bricks, the tarry roof, our building mourns in black (for us?).

Armani strutted through the bottom floor, no cash cow anymore, now gone, a warm step for the ragged man, beer swollen, sleeping on a cardboard slab.

We got out nicking time, cash stuffed, still mewling, lumbering our stuff up north to trees, the din of birds. 

Still,

Outside the city racket, sadness rises like the fog.

Each soul in anti-alias, known to neighbors, carved in gossip,

claustrophobic with its ghosts.

Why I ran before panicked and enthralled,

Down and pocketed in New York City's wide and generous skirt
And lived a life.