Sunday

Cold. I walked thru Times Square on my way to 9th Avenue. The neon signs are antiseptic this morning--few people or cars on the streets. Reach 8th Avenue--it is half awake too and 9th is like a dull mud. I smell the diesel fumes of the buses leaving the Port Authority. That 9th Avenue is mud may be overstated. But there is no glamour to it. Picking up my friend Chris, I am bound for church. I spot a gold finch with specks of gold on his or her chest. And neck.

Neck meat, neck bones. I regale my special woman friend with a tale of my sisters, the youngest tell my middle sister the joy of eating neck meat. My youngest sis's great love so far was a black man. The middle sister tells her she will stick to pot roast as a comfort food. I don't know which bird or animal gave up his neck meat and I don't want to know. Pot roast is a comfort food of mine too. But I believe in flecks of gold. And gold finches are too small to have much neck meat.