bubbles float on 9th avenue

above the heads daily foot-track. 
i try to find a source. each moves
like a cradle. like there is something
inside the bubbles that we cannot know 
& it needs to be rocked gentled.
i consider myself inside one of them
because i'm always looking for 
somewhere else to locate my body.
i dream inside matchboxes & Ziploc bags.
i want the wind between the buildings
to be muffled through the bubbles skin.
i am walking towards penn station where 
a train will push my body fast enough
to get home. each rail car a kind
of bubble only without the blink
of rainbow & without the same obvious threat
of rupture. if i linger too long
i'll miss that train & the world will end.
i will become a bubble floating outside
in the july heat. i will beckon 
people walking by. i plot along,
using the curb as a sidewalk & passing by
people will less urgency in their gate.
other people are briefly considering
the bubble though no one tries
to pop one & no one tries to fit themselves
inside one. i think about how brave
a bubble is in new york city's movements.
i want to buy bubbles. just one little tube
with the wand in the lid. i think about
sitting on the porch with my brother
in july. suds on my fingers. blowing carefully
so as to make as large bubbles as possible.
us grabbing them like clear fruit as if
we could teach the bubbles to be solid.
i reach up to one of the bubble on the street. 
the cars shout at each other in their 
metal throats. everything is touching shoulders
& then there's these bubbles. as if there
is nothing to be bothered about. i have
to hold one. i have to. i am a short man.
i am a small man in all of this. sweat blooms 
along my forehead. i strain. i want to graze
the bottom of the bubble but it sneaks just
out of my touch. i have to keep moving
so i do & i don't look back but i invent 
a version of the story where i touched the bubble
& it did become solid. a sphere of glass.
that i pocketed that sphere & took it home
to release it in the parking lot
behind our apartment where no one ever walks.
maybe a part of me was cruel. maybe i wanted
the bubble to be lonely like i was or maybe
i wanted to keep it for company.
maybe those are both the same thing.