#2, #3, #6, #9, #12

by Brendan Connolly

#2 (i cried three times)at the met(once to the death of socrates, once to wheat fields with cypresses and once in the classical greek wing where)jackie danced through the marble statues, trying to tell the room about the music(only she could hear through her headphones)   #3 we ate warmed biscuits in union square, listening to children bang on painted pianos jackie tells me there is a man around here willing to teach me how to coax pigeons into my hands the streets are congested around construction as we walk along the dirt paths of the park she says new york needs some time to relax, to take stock in the end goal and that is? i ask she smiles and shrugs, i guess it/s the ability to eat biscuits and hold pigeons and play piano all at the same time   #6 we sniff glue down in her basement and decide to try and recreate our favorite ramones songs we meet and fall in love next to the soda machine in burger king and take the brighton local to coney island we ride rollercoasters as the afternoon draws long and i ask if she wants to go to rockaway beach? no, she says laughing, not even for a hat   #9 in jackie/s living room we drew horsehair over our shared lies we spoke of our lost loves on 1st avenue, of singing steel and the soviets, of the third acts we/d miss chasing trains, of 8th avenue in the rain with protestant whiskey, of the children we/d name for literary figures, of our favorite movies we could do better, of saints we made up sitting on the fountain at washington square park, of the sunburst spread between the buildings at dusk from the brooklyn bridge, of laughter in neon light constellations   #12 we walked the museum mile down 5th avenue laughing about the things we hate young girls in school uniforms run by us to catch the parked ice cream trucks we paid no attention to the crosswalk signs, having to save each other from the rushing traffic we make fun of high society types of the upper east side as they pick up the shit of their purebreds from the broad sidewalks jackie says all the best art has no frame — Brendan Connolly’s work has been featured by Genre: Urban Arts, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, Breathe Free Press and elsewhere. These pieces are from a flash collection, stuff about me and jackie in new york city. He lives and writes in Salem, Ma. Artwork by: Aurelien Bomy