Out By The Garbage Chute

I still remember that little place

out by the garbage chute,

on the thirteenth floor overlooking the city.

I was almost always alone out there,

except occasionally interrupted

by people chucking their trash.

I would sit out there for hours, smoking cigarettes,

writing poems, sometimes

just looking out over the lights.

I drank a lot of beer in those days.

They knew me down

at the corner convenience store, my brands.

My daughter had stayed a few days with me,

and she left behind a purple baseball cap.

I would take it with me, hold it up to my nose

and smell the scent of her:

baby shampoo, her lavender lotion, her skin.

I’d turn it in my hands, think of her,

how I could still be there for her

even when I wasn’t.

Smoke my cigarette, toss it over the railing

watch it twist into all that darkness

tumble, explode, disappear.

You know, every light in the city

is a subtlety different shade, from that height.

The greens, the dull whites, the oranges, red, yellows.

The startle bright of white LEDs

which were much more rare in those days.

Turned her cap in my hands and thought

it was like I was actually up on that railing

perched, my arms outstretched.

This was really a balancing act, with the door,

the hallway, her, and my apartment on one side

and the dark ash of the cigarette’s fall

the endless blink of a million lights on the other.

Turned it in my hands.

And smelled the scent of baby shampoo.