congregation of Coney Island in the church of Brooklyn lights

in the long shadow afternoon, the sun silver plates the red beams of the parachute drop where it stands into the sky, an empty unapplied framework. Silk parachutes were once affixed to its intricate circles, and people dropped from them at the World’s Fair held in Queens then later here, after it was disassembled and moved. Imagine them, silhouetted jellyfish floating down silently in staggered sixes. In real life, there must have been screaming. Now, it is too close to the a fence to allow for jumping.

the boardwalk boards stretch out like rough skinned lizards absorbing the heat under the wind. The pale newer planks sport American flag stamps like rub on tattoos. On the left, the ocean heaves forward and curls back in on herself endlessly. On the right, the wind blows through the Astroland space needle at half mast, the wooden Cyclone rollercoaster, the still Wonder Wheel. Wailing as it does where it finds emptiness.

the pier is a cross, and I walk its entire perimeter. On the far end, the fishermen sit with their poles, unwrapping sandwiches from Cyrillic newspapers. There is one woman fishing today. My age, I think; Philippina, I think. The ocean is louder here, the wind unimpeded; we’re all extended out into the middle of everything. Two elder Hasidic men walk in symmetrical steps in identical long trenches and beards. Their shiny black shoes. Their black cookie cutter hats. The third in their party, a grandmotherly woman, huddles into her big black coat, her teeny black hat miraculously perched in her cumulous hair. We all breathe in and out with the ocean.

at the crook of the cross, an old Asian woman in baggy khakis and thick soled sneakers faces out to the blaring runner of light along the water to our setting white star. She drops over, touching her toes. Toe touch toe touch toe touch. Then her arms reach out wide wide. Then she uses them to carve great spheres out of the air in font of her heart center. She turns the air like spinning cotton candy. She draws it all to her chest, palms together, bows again, humbling down. Coming up, her palms grip the wooden railing, and she rises up like a seal, pumping her old woman body into the sunlight. Over & up, over & up—glory glory hallelujah.

a white man in a purple wind breaker on his bike with his brown buddy on foot linger near the beginning end of the pier. As I pass in my silence, he shouts, not uninfluenced by alcohol, Hey! Hey! Can I ask you a question? This pauses me reluctantly, ready to offer the time or directions or rage depending. I am across the width of the pier. No question is coming. Instead, he is coming, getting off his bike. I hold up my hand at arms length, palm up, what’s your question. He stupidly requests to ask one again.

you can ask it from there, but I am already picking up my pace since he clearly does not want information. Do you know who I am? he demands. You want to know who I am; you want to know me, he shouts at my back. Somewhere in there, he throws in his would be compliment: I like the way you look.

i step into my shadow walking slowly along toward Brighton Beach. Solitary runners pass me, popping their lips in rhythm or flapping them like horses. A man in light sleek black running wear reclines on one of the benches without arms, hooks his sneaks in the bar arching over its middle, sits up sits up sits up. The patrolling cops won’t bother him; he’s not sleeping.

i keep in my silence, veering around a trio of ebullient dudes who try for my attention. There’s a homeless couple, colluding and comforting each other, and a man biking, two puppies in his wicker basket, radio lashed behind them.

then there’s a girl flying into my path. I suddenly feel an obligation to tape cut out bird silhouettes to myself so she can see the glass, so she won’t fly into me and break her neck. Her turquoise skirt billows around her white thighs. Her dirty t-shirt, white with light blue and red bird shapes, is half-tucked into it, her denim jacket open to her fancy camera around her neck.

Hi! Hi! Ummm—may I take your picture?

the wind throws her curls nervously in her face; they tangle briefly in her nose ring, her glasses. She pitches forward, I’ve never been out here, my friends live in Brooklyn but I’ve never been to Coney Island and I am out here alone, and I don’t have anyone to take pictures of; I never have anyone to take pictures of. May I take your picture?

she already has my “yes” smile. She doesn’t know it, but I’d say yes to anything she asks of me. I say, Do you want me to take your picture?

oh no, oh no…I don’t like my picture taken. I know, but you look great here at Coney Island. It’s okay; you look right here too. I promise. But I do not say these things. I say, What would you like me to do? Where would you like me to stand?

she isn’t sure, spastic in her successful recruitment. I squint into the sun, consider our proximity, turn left, stand on the sunny edge of the dark shadow in front of the shooting gallery. She’ll only fire off a shot or two.

how about in front of the Shoot the Freak? That seems right…

her smile cranks up, delivering wattage. I like the way you’re thinking, she chirps. I wonder about the lighting; it’s a difficult shot—me washed out in the brightness, the freak pit in deep shadow. We’re at angles with the light coming over her left shoulder. It could be worse.

Where are you visiting from?

Toronto!

Those are some awful nice cowgirl boots from Toronto.

They’re from a thrift store! proudly announced, followed by five minutes on Value Village, which are called Super Savers here, she elucidates.

at the other end of her lens, I must look a part. I wear rainbow socks with my hiking boots that have carried me miles and miles just today and, over the past few years, through waterfalls and urban slums in Ghana and back alley markets with fish guts running in the gutters of Hanoi. I wear black leggings with a pattern of hearts and flowers worked up their sides that remind me of my Swedish and Dutch friends. I wear a faded denim skirt, hacked off and raw edged at the knees. It used to be floor length and fish tailed. The edge of my red slip may be showing. My sweater is from Sears from the 70s, bought at some Midwestern thrift store for less than $5. It is pine green with a subtle horizontal pattern in tiny v stitches in white and orange and yellow. The ribbed neckline is torn at the center an inch down, but that’s hidden under my scarf, pearlescent and grey, wrapped round and round with long fringes sending off wishes and blessings like prayer flags. The hippie bag slung at my shoulder is stitched together once by Laotion hands then once again by mine in careful cross stitches in yarn that turns from blue to lavender and back again. It has three pins: Food Not Bombs Brooklyn, “We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness,” and a safety pin, a tool.

pale lipped, no make up, my face wears only huge round black sunglasses, held together on one side with a toothpick broken off. My hair—the ends red, the beginnings sparrow brown and grey; not short, not long—is pinned every which way and wind teased.

so I wonder, young woman, what you saw of me and Coney Island? My heart hardened like crème brulee? What did you see here of yourself?

there is tinsel in the sand.

the Q train to Tibet

Scarlet—like a cardinal with shining feathers, this squarish velvet cap nestle down over his hair. The hair peeks out as black wing tips, though the stubble on his chin is white grey. His face is more pock marked than wrinkled. From the stillness—the half breathe moment of stillness after the subway doors close and before the new riders are quite settled and the train jolts to a go—his motion flows, imperceptibly at first, right forefinger and thumb drawing together over each of the fingers of his left hand, from the cool hollow between the fingers, pressing up each fingers’ medians and joining over the apex, waxy scarred fingers with the blue veins running hot below a thick, opalescent surface.

It is impossible to say how old he is. I imagine that like Carson McCullers’ jockey, he’s stopped sweating. Not letting moisture escape, like cactus, in a singed environment. He holds his hand to slowly work his wrist in circles. I wonder if he is Tibetan or Cambodian. In circles, he moves his arm at the elbow then feels each ribbon of muscle in his forearm. The glossy pink scars streaked over the features of the Cambodian Pol Pot regime survivors, dusty in the streets of Phenom Penh. Through my jersey skirt, I finger the thin scar streaking across my thigh over my stocking top. If we broke open at these places, we’d ooze like aloe, healing goo, the healing that comes from the most broken places, experiences.

He rolls his shoulder, works his arm up over his head. His hands press his thighs through his thin canvas pants. His thumbs run along the line of his femur; the bone, he cleaves muscle and bone with his thumb that has barely a nail. He draws his hands in prayer form to his heart center. Tonglen; I breath.

Beside him, a young woman is working the ends of her long auburn ponytail with her fingers; measuring off and turning bits with a beautician’s flick, pedaling strands through her fingers like the quarter trick, turning the coins over knuckle to knuckle. Her pale pink ankles are dry above the dingy pink sneakers.

Over her shoulder, past the subway door, a woman, with hoop earrings and a mouth huge and round, has rhinestone mandalas at the ankles of her boots. The fluorescent light on her green vinyl purse jumps in white over the subway seats, pooling on the orange plastic.

Across from the woman of circles, an old black man. Across from the woman of circles, an old man who lifts the leg of his trousers, his skinny leg above his black sock, rubs the ash out of his brown skin, in circles with his thumb.

At the far end of the car, the beautiful man—his dark sideburns cut parallel to his jaw. His feet casually wide in well-worn cowboy boots, planted on either side of his wet black umbrella and bag. Jeans. His black cased guitar. He reads the paper from moment to moment

I think the meditator has fallen asleep, but he has leaned deeply left along the back of the 3-wide subway seat with his thin back the pole in his tent coat. His eyes are only partially closed. He comes to upright center. He sweeps right, deeply into my space, sitting in the first seat perpendicular, to the point of scarlet not far from my chest. I hold my breathe, like waiting for deer

The train sways, stops, people leave and enter. He repeats.

Across the aisle, two Russian ladies watch and discuss quietly. Across from us, a man straddles a big Victoria’s Secret bag. Beside him, a woman pulls the novel she’s reading from a Daffy’s bag.

The cardinal climbs back to center
In the next pause, the stop is Cortelyou, and inspired—I leave to seek moma.

According to my composed, biscuit offering cubicle mate, the corner shop is a gustatory destination. For moma.

Have you been to the Momo shop, she asks?
Moma? I repeat, wondering about modern art satellites in Brooklyn.
Next to the subway stop, she adds.
With the coin operated pink pony? I am totally bewildered, but that’s what’s on the corner.
Yes, they are the only place in New York with authentic momos.

Which, it turns out, are steamed Tibetan dumplings.

I mostly go to this shop for pashminas and Japanese cracker sticks you dip in frosting (disgusting—I know, but they have impossibly cute critters on them with sayings like “active in the night” for the bat”). The night shift guy and I have had fantastic short conversations sparked by his Dalai Lama photo.

When I came in late Saturday night and asked if they, in fact, make momo, he hustled me to the back freezers, and we hunched over the rows and rows of frosted little bundles in silver pans. Rows of carefully wrapped yak, chicken and –yes!—veggies.

On my way out, I stop by the one bunch of all white gerbera daisies. They are so fantastic—sharp, creamy white like goat cheese with some plumy fuchsia at their centers, skirted in waxy emerald leaves—evergreen looking, evergreen evoking, primitive even, in their structure around the wide-eyed daisies.

How much?
For you—$7.

I’ll go back someday to try the moma, he insists, and for a price comparison, to gauge my discount. I split the bouquet between my room and my new flatmates.

All of this was before I knew about the anti-China protests in Tibet, violently repressed. The Dalai Lama is calling it cultural genocide; the Dalai Lama is calling the ongoing violence as a result of Chinese rule and oppression “cultural genocide.” The protests have spread to India, Pakistan—what will happen in Beijing?

Buddhist monks are protesting. The shorn headed monks in their robes of marigold-orange& crimson are being killed by Chinese government forces, soldiers, and killing themselves. I did not learn about the protests in Tibet until the morning after I saw the man in his scarlet cap practicing his limb-by-limb meditation on the Q.