WEBVTT

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Here's another
kind of city poem,

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this time New York is the city.

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To me, New York, I suppose
is, or was for years

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a kind of center of history.

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I'm not at all convinced
that the center of history

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is not an uninhabited island
in the middle of the Pacific,

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which the Navy is using
as a bombing target.

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I'm serious.

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I'll tell you about that island.

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"Night Above the Avenue."

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"The whole time that I have
lived here, at every moment

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somebody has been at
the point of birth

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behind a window
across the street

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and somebody behind a
window across the street

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has been at the point of death.

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They have lain there
in pain and hope

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on and on, and away
from the windows,

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the dark interiors
of their bodies

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have been opened to lights.

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And they have waited
bleeding and have

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been frightened and happy.

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Unseen by each other, we
have been transformed,

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and the traffic has flowed
away from between them

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and me in four directions
as the lights have changed

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day and night, and
I have sat up late

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at the kitchen window knowing
the news watching the paired

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red lights recede
from under the windows

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down the avenue toward the
tunnel under the river.

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And the white
lights from the park

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rushing toward us through
the sirens and the music,

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and I have wakened in
a wind of messages."

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