Snapshot from Brooklyn

9 a.m., Gowanus Canal, quiet warehouses, greasy water, vines and metal piles, small snuffly dogs, leafy street, record store that also sells excellent coffee, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, me singing to myself, laughing with Tom at the cover of Jethro Tull: A Passion Play, sidewalk shrine for a smiling faded dead man, metal doors clattering up, subway roaring over the 9th Street bridge, smoking woman still smoking outside the hotel, boys still sleeping, air conditioner rumbling. No hurricane yet.