WEBVTT

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This next poem is
called "The Work."

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It's the last poem in this book.

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Imagine living very depressed
in New York City in winter,

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as I did.

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"Ice burning off the river in
the crystal air, souls lifting.

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Rapture, as you want to see
it, lifting and then vanishing

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in crowds as if a
door is being shut.

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As if a door is being
shut, though there

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are evermore crowds
of souls waiting

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to rise above the
glass and steel towers

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erect above the river.

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Their deserted floors
lit and their elevators

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ready for the nothing
that will show up all day.

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The antenna lights on top
of them, red and twinkling,

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city hard as stars.

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You're in it-- in the
hardness and vapors,

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in the unbreakable,
the ungraspable.

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Hurrying against the
light, truck horn blaring,

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bearing down, and fading down
the desolate Sunday Avenue.

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6 o'clock in the City
of Hidden Dragons,

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exhaling the remnants
of their hidden fires

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through the rotting piers and
ice edged grates, smoldering

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beneath the river and under
the streets, in the lungs,

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yes, of you.

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The sun edges, reluctant, to
the rim of the Eastern shore.

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You walk and breathe,
watch your soul lifting.

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The cherubs, chipped and worn
at the lintels, the gargoyles

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at the cornices, the saints
on the dashboard of the taxi

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idling at the light--

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idling at the light.

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Idling at the curb
of the street where

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the bodies are tucked into
newspaper corners and tarp

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covered stoops, their boxes
and bags and sleeping shadows

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dusted with a thin
coating of ice.

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14 degrees and the
mercury dropping.

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14 degrees and the mercury
lifting up on his icy wings,

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up and up past the rusted steel
railings of the fire escapes,

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all the six flights, to a
rocking gap between the window

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and the frame of
your box apartment

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and slipping soundlessly in.

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What will he take,
God of Thieves?

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What will he fix?

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The deuces.

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Have you felt him perched
at the foot of your bed

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as you tossed, sleepless and
dream plagued, as you stood

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and groped down
your ill-lit stairs

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pushing open the
heavy locked door

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and hurried into
the knifing air.

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Passed the bodies asleep
in the vapors obscuring

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the padlocked stores
and vacant lots, to stop

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transfixed at the
steaming river,

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its slow exhalation of souls.

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So cold, the red
tips of your fingers,

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the little white crystals
at work in your blood.

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Your gloveless hands
jammed into your pockets

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as you watched the sun
come cold and turned back

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reluctant and trudged
up the steep flights

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and turned the key in
the lock and stepped in.

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This is it--

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America.

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You put the water on
the pot in the pot.

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This is it-- your century.

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You put the match to the stove.

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You can feel it, the
city, constant around you

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as you put the dark
tea in the cup.

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What is the river?

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What are the souls to the engine
industry grinding about you,

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to the tightening weave of the
electronic strings in which

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love and money and science are
speeding, to the ghost bodies

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iced on this frozen stairwells.

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What are they-- your
river and souls.

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Radiators hiss.

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Droplets at the pot's
rim bubble and vanish.

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And what is this to
your river and souls?

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Tea now, drink it, little
hearth in your hands.

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Water and salt, my
vessel, my loved one,

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are making their marriage again.

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To say I hurt--

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to say the heavens are empty.

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To say I hurt--

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the heavens are empty.

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The streets are empty.

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Beer cans scatter, the click
and tink of their tinny bells.

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To say there is a Dark
Age grasping for light

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extending its bent hands
back to the other one which

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had striven and striven
while this one doesn't even

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know its strides.

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And to say the
sirens are advancing.

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And to say it's 1999.

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And to say my gas bill is late.

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And to say there is no lover
and to rise up to the stove

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and pour the water in the
cup, to watch the tea stain it

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while Mercury opens
his doctoring wings

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and hovers at the edge of
the ceiling, to cocoon you,

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to give you a stage.

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It is the work.

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Sophia, Wisdom, Jewel,
it is the work."

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