circa 1940: A pickpocket at work in New York. (Photo by William Davis/General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

accompanied by a labored window unit

A motion, the sea voice fluttering, a cry

understood word for word, a summer sound,

tilting in the air, perishing, erased by rain.

A serenade, a night wind sigh, out of the spirit

of black waves, the virtuoso ocean

drowning out a song.

The wind blowing, a metaphysician

in the dark, a woman, drunk,

dancing a stumble on the shore.

Dee Dee Ramone, master of the mamba,

tell me in a doo wop how to get from East Erie

to the Commodore Club. All I know

it’s way above of the Crosstown.

Dee Dee Ramone