In the Village at Seven-Thirty in June

by L. Lois

Pride Month every day this year

in the West Village

evening streets teeming

with poets and queens

Hudson Library on LeRoy

open mic prizes

the librarian rocking her words

everyone in a jumpsuit

and Doc Martens

more restaurants and bars

than rats

no roads running north, south

east or west

corner of Bleecker 

Stonewall close at-hand and mind

Freedom Tower's spire

catching the glint of June's waning sun

afternoon humidity

spent on the rain

Michaelangelo clouds carrying

pure white 

to break up the blue

periwinkle to robin's egg

sapphire grandness over small bricks

on large walls with shutters

gold winking off telecom toothpicks

uptown telling us to pour another drink

bring on the joy that makes

this city pulse like a heart

never stopping

BIO: L. Lois lives in an urban hermitage where trauma-informed themes flow during walks by the ocean. She is pivoting through her grandmother-era, figuring out why her bevy of adult children don’t have babies. Her poems have appeared in The Mid-Atlantic Review, Inlandia, Twisted Vine, Querenica Press, Washington Square Review, Sparks of Calliope, and other literary publications. Links to her published work can be found on her website (https://poeting.my.canva.site).