Forty-Second Street

The sidewalk gapes open down dark basement stairs
You could fall there among kegs and cardboard cartons
spider-webs and planks   The brokers and the broken

pass on the street   Acacia leaves swirl up
in schools of golden flying fish  Then we see them
mashed in porridge in the gutter

In the back room of the library, old wooden card catalogues
tilt every which way, their tongues lolling out
An earthquake-stricken city emptied of ideas

as the wooden telephone booth in the marble hall
waits for phantoms
to ring with news of the other world

Outside, dropped boards clatter to the pavement
A truck clanks over a pothole, its hydraulic brake
squawks release   Cars shush by  Banks fail

East into morning Forty-Second Street
is a blinding, nickel-plated strip   Water hissed and gargled
all night in the bedroom wall

I made my prayer
to Nuestra Senora de la Soledad
and dropped Shakti’s Paperback Spiritual Guide to Self-Transformation

in the trash with onion peels, melon rinds,
teabags, fishbones, and holiday photos
of impeccable children

Swallows

Your email message began “Cara”
while the computer emitted its horsefly buzz.
Drafts of poems lay face down on the floor.
Swallows dove past the window: I stood
looking out over red tiled roofs across
to wooded hills and a field of stubble wheat.
A combine was parked at the edge of the field.
The bronze bells in the cathedral, centuries old,
released a flock of vibrations into late afternoon,
ringings and after-ringings floated down
to rest in the boughs of walnut trees
and in the eaves of stone farmhouses and barns.
It was growing dark. No more
crusades. No armies. Nobody’s heart
meant any harm. The stones in the town ramparts
loosened, I was free
to mourn. And look--
how old we’ve grown.