Daniel Kim

Cargo

McCarren park at night is plaid with cardboard,
seltzer, orange peels, a baseball field, white
from floodlights glancing off the players’ faces
like planets. At the liquor store I ask
for Snow Chrysanthemum, a crisp kombucha
that sold out months ago. Leaves become wax
on the brownstone stoops. A planter holds a small
catalpa, leaves like whole tongues, a teenage
growth spurt. The record store is a fudge
of stock as dense as the Bronx interchange
that madly shoots around in somersaults
until the cars fall out. A train flicks on
in a rail yard, suddenly not junk, muscles
convulsing the way a horse bunches up inside.
It was the moment The Smashing Pumpkins
pushed sound through sandpaper, the moment
shipping containers as pretty as baguettes
fused into a city of gift wrap. By dawn
the moon floats around the faint port, wet
and peeling. I could ladle it out of the morning.