Column I
The thing about living there
Was it never ended
There was always something:
Nine Eleven
Two Thousand and One
Cloud-cover of ash and
Immolated flesh
Thick and gritty
Pulverized concrete
In our hair and lungs
Running down the Esplanade
Past the discarded stilettos
Then:
Sulley waterplaning
On the Hudson
Out my window
Such grace suspended
Aircraft buoyed by balloons
Of avoided oblivion
Everyone saved
I almost believed in magic
And:
Hurricane breaching
Watching the sea wall
As the water receded
Once again safe
And shrugging off fate
To continue my gambling game
Or:
Navy Seal down
Cut his own cord
Parachute failing
Falling before my eyes
Into the Morris Canal
Small boats surging
In waves of futile rescue
No rebirth canal for him
It was one thing
And then another
Gravity always grabbing us
Time and time once more
The Navy was silent but I Persevered:
Relentlessly !!!!! Obsessively
Living terror by video
Over and over:
The still alive body
Pulled from Canal Purple with bruises
How his feet struggled
Scissoring air
To keep the fall straight
Column II
And that was Two Thousand
Two Thousand Seventeen
Sixteen years later
Yet still we sayed on
Lived there
Like tiny animals
Interrupted
A spider squashed
By my showery me
My evil thumb
How many thumbs
Until the thumb tires?
How many to die
Under tires of thumb?
We were not as
We were supposed to Be
But kept on Being
Then and then again
Remaining there
Never straying
From Concentric Circles
That tangled their way
To the Epicenter
Small spiders squashed
Are usually done-for
While our trudging the hill
Towards the old IRT Line —
Our City’s first subway
Pride of the Century —
Spoke of a bug I could not kill —
As recent as yesterday —
Because she was missing a leg
But still moving on
Looking for the web
She’d made her home
When I left I said: Time to Go
Not My City Anymore
Finally made my choice
My existential leap
Small spiders
Do not wonder
Who’s packing
Their parachutes
Never Shall ponder
Their existential leaps