The Brooklyn Rail

a.)   this

Quarter to three

the day off DON’T

                     WALK

light stops me

 

at ‘lantic abnya

bound downtown

to pay the bills

 

and get enchanted

ah, the loveliness’

 

May afternoon full of

spring’s fuzzy balm

 

sun’s lazy versions of

peace, honest lover, she

gave me this shirt

 

oxfordcloth cottonmost

comfortable sleeve

for such a day, graced

 

with having survived

unlike, I’m thinking

 

various victims, even

springtime voracious

classmates, jazzfolk

 

poets hanging from the trees

so lucky, I’m thinking

to be a poet standing

 

on two feet, respiring

peacefully at gaze upon

the easterly horizon

 

 

b.)   that

      so blithe and so,

                                     WHOOSH

      from the west, in the flood

      of traffic, steel estuary

 

     noisy and gassy, a city

     but passant, clearance of

     let’s say six inches

 

     oblivious to me

     As I to it, and

      of course, I see

 

     at once the absent-

     minded quarter-turn

     of my frame as sure-

 

     ly as feel the im-

     pact on the fine blouse

     several crunching tons

 

     of momentum at the spit-

     second to feel anything

 

     chordate mammalian splat

     and then, of course, but now

 

     how now, old Brooklyn

     still, and she moves with a grin toward three

 

     thus the gentler

     completion of a few

     errands on a gorgeous

 

      also this time

      merciful day.