Long Island Iced Tea

You drink wine with your friend
from New York and sense

the old heat and noise. The city
always treated you well, but

you still ache a little at memories
of heavy bags on the subway,

the need to be somewhere always
slightly far away. You savored,

always, the view of the sprawl
from your airplane seats,

the illusion that this expanse,
every kind of person and thing

laid out before you in tableau
could be mixed into one glass,

drunk down in sweet triumph
without overwhelming.