Thinking of you in August. Autumn ever so close. Walks through Central Park looking at people pushing baby strollers. Listening to Coltrane and stopping for a moment’s kiss.

My first room in Manhattan cost $250 a month. That was back in ’86. Now days it’s a town house on 24th Street; the Y close by where Albee used to get his kicks. The corner store where you could by loosies for a quarter, poppers for $5.

And hookers strolled over from 8th Avenue. Selling their bodies under stairwells, dark back yards, church parking lots, Needle Park.

We would walk hand in hand. Unfazed by junkies, pimps, speed freaks criminals, vagabonds.

We were so broke back then. Funny how things never change; except the rent.