Good Company on Murray Street

Good Company on Murray Street

Black and white glint, still

my well-dressed rectangle

reminder of time-travel past.

Born-again business tucked beneath leagues of New

Yorkers, the honking and more honking, and Lord,

the honking and “Hey, watch where you’re goin’, kid!”

Misleading Google maps and streetlamps become

useless in our pilgrimage for that

holiest of waters, a divine

whiskey reward after the city’s humid

hug left our body’s river run dry.

At wit’s end, we gave in and spoke

to a priest alone in his church on Murray,

whose clerical robes promised SECURITY.

Roll away the boulder, right this way,

the staircase down, he said,

its thin descension beckoning.

For below, squinted eyes revealed

in God’s basement a speakeasy

lingering casually under a haze of dim

secrecy, teeming bow ties and boot

leg gin cocktails, the suspenders tinkling happy-go-

lucky harmony behind a drum and double-bass choir

leading the congregation to salvation in a cup,

confessing our sins in exchange for seven hail

bloody Mary’s. Then our communion the blood

of Christ in raised glasses, cheering

“Amen,” speaking easy because we’d been

baptized in an August evening, a Silver

Lining in Good Company on Murray Street.

-Tyler Pursch, 2015