every evening all the people
going home from work
the light having run
a fuller race from
the day before
there is a grace
to evening’s
colored ends
a settling down
as though we are watching
the dust settle on the day
which I have chewed up like a pill
at 6:37 PM
the watchtower’s glass eyes
on the lookout for a final end
so there will be an end
to the story
she tells to her millions of people
she is looking at the city
her thousands of eyes
she is waiting for the clouds
to break like an egg
full of blood
and the rivers to roil
beneath the bridge
its rivulets colder
than the day before
the fish put on their jackets
the people are clothed
in darkness by seven
every evening all the people
going home from work
• • •
if we are struggling
over the bridge
then we are at
our worst or best
thus this polemic sway
the river absolutely
blue and liberty
absolutely green
the bridge is one
of many binding
the city to the earth
unfinished buildings
reveal their skeletons
“everybody needs
an antagonist”
says the man in the green
wool hat his laughter
the color of trees
against the white noise
of the subway roll
if all we hear is laughter
if all we hear is noise
if we are struggling
• • •
like disassembled birds
we hurtle through the sky
our bodies packed in feathers
and the trains rush past
a blur of yellow white
the river full of dark no sky
to speak of or reflect
warehouses yawn
with empty lit-up heads
where brains would be
if buildings know
how to be in one place
for a hundred years—
how do they
address us
blurring past
our coats and packages
our soft and tender bodies
our fitted shoes and pants
we are like packages
of moving parts
the way we hurtle
through the sky
like disassembled birds
• • •
across the bridge
we sleep the sleep
of the blue-white sheet
reflecting mute
bright power
to illumine
not to alter shape
but usher in
the eye’s purview
a radiance
illuminates
aluminum can trains
slugging across
its latticework applied
a plié held apart
the bridge resembles nothing
so much as we resemble
each other plugging in
to a remembered dark
“I love Javier”
“I love. . .”
blue smear of ink so florid
in the halogenic light
we sleep inside
across the bridge
• • •
in winter there is no tender earth
we slog across the bridge
of no volition of our own
agraria is fast asleep
like the trees in their smooth bark
and winters grip has fastened us
but only to a dumb routine
the sun appears innocently
because the sun is innocent
phenomena with no intent
a steady path whose length
is not to understand
we trick ourselves
across the bridge
one comfort’s worth
another’s loss
the empty firepits
retreat into
imaginary dark
as though there were
no tender earth
• • •
having knit ourselves
to winter’s frost
having drummed this
salt air ’til we could
no longer rise
what happens now
that this bridge carries
us the same
as those that cover
other rivers?
each of these
preposterous
monstrosities bequeathed
in dream and the cold
dark salt of work
delivers its payload
to a changed
and changing earth
this train we ride
is relic and harbinger
at once we must
live closer
having knit ourselves
to winter’s frost
• • •
the window opens only
to a rush of wind
we all glance only once
at one another
the train is a house
built of sticks
so careful our tinder
and pointed our rest
we deserve to share this
junk-scarred outpost
if I could ask
for one almighty power
I’d like to know
what exactly
is American about me
a map of my neural pathways
a list of my most fraught
associations
but I know this already
how unusual is the train
pulling its passengers
into the sky
like a net of silver
flashing fish
and a flare of sun
moves behind the city
because it is tired and done
this is not very American
but it is American
this train is a house
with its doors thrown open
only to a rush of wind.