I said to my grown child
Visiting for a friend‘s wedding:
Don‘t walk under the bridge
Between Deutche Bank
And the World Trade Center.
It‘s been closed for years
And I see that metal plates have fallen off.
Why has it not been torn down.
It‘s not safe.
Don‘t walk down Liberty Street.*
All that summer
I‘d had a fear
Of air conditioners
Falling from buildings' windows
Since I‘d never understood
Why so few had died by their fall
I often stuck to the gutter.**
At brunch we spoke
About Rome
The Palatine
The civilization buried.
When I mused
Rhetorically
That ours might come to an end
My husband soothsaid
He did not know when
“But you can be sure
if it happens we
did not watch our backs.”***
The day after tomorrow
It happened****
Pulverized concrete
Crumbled like the Palatine.