Cooling Board: A Long Playing Poem

The Last Supper (Roberta ’s Apartment, Central Park West)

105 • THE LAST SuPPEr (rObErTA’S APArTMENT, CENTrAL PArK WEST) Roberta played a song today that I was unprepared for, the unfamiliar melody my pause once at her table. from these windows, Manhattan is the world: blanket of emerald & stone, a mask for the hazards below. no one promised when we made a way into this world we would know which day was the last, be ready when the bed became our cooling board. I trust the piano, have faith it will take whatever fails to fall from my mouth & make it clear. When I get weary, & the notes don’t come, won’t come, I testify. It all becomes song. ...