New York, New York
It’s been five fucking years
and the world’s still ending…
I’m standing in this room with Katie
and how many strangers
all these pictures,
words, the pain still fresh
throbbing through the layers of concrete
under my feet.
Manhattan New York I love you so much
I do really I swear
this feeling arises in me unfamiliar;
this connection to you like my lover
(like when I know his thoughts or that his ears
must be cold in this fog or that it’s
not yet time to let go)
Suddenly but not so sudden
Really
I realize what happened on that
scar of a date which I am too ashamed to name
(please tell me somebody when days on the calendar
or a name that’s supposed to be for a person
became events instead of these things
they’d been before
but never will be again?)
Jesus god holy fuck help me please
this really did happen; the immensity
slams into me like tons of steel–
I can’t breathe (they couldn’t breathe
the smoke the ash Christ almighty please)
where am I? Brooklyn New York
New York
where now you can see from across the water
but you couldn’t from there not the first time
the first time I saw you in person too young too stupid
I never thought about something so big
(hadn’t voted but then stood agape
as the ape
stole the throne then called it his own…)
I see now they really did this
and so did we
never have been by the financial district
still can’t do it
I’m sorry so sorry
Really
I wasn’t there for you then and I’m not
sure I’m there for you now
I’m in Brooklyn and even in this spacious gallery
the walls are closing in the choke tightens between
Adam’s apple and the empty spaces behind my nose & eyes
(emptiness, absence, a concept so immediate standing here)
New York
see? An endless field of vision interrupted by slate
for city blocks (sixteen acres they razed
only to come to this)
I can’t cry not even here not even now although
it’s all I seem to be capable of at intervals
five years five goddamn years after I stood
in the living room with Christy and the news was
always on television and we were afraid
(the center cannot hold)
she said and it was apocalypse; still is, but
we weren’t there and can’t ever say we were–
helpless grief and confusion today (and then)
pointless guilt at arriving at present unscathed:
witnesses but not survivors…
Flying is like falling in a different direction
though both we now see can have the same ending
so enormous so fathomless the size the scope
Manhattan shrouded like the Sunset, San Francisco but
it was cremation hovering in the gaps
between the buildings and the not-buildings
Standing is like collapsing
when I’m here in Brooklyn when
I was there
my heart felt explosions while it also
shrank away like indifference or security
New York
New York
it really happened
I love you more than home.