A New York Poem

~ for Jane Sprague, 10/24-25, 2007*

Fall finally came like an index to this space of the page cities
Memories I finally read the postcards you sent me yesterday

Bound like a Dickinson fascicle told me in a clipped way your
Husband had a bicycle accident while the fires have their way
In Southern California “four migrant workers dead” a headline

Reads predictably then moved on to another topic as postcards
Tragically do is this the voice New York poems put on in all

Their ironic feeling and what they suppress a remnant of all was
Actually felt we are all tragedies and accidents these days it seems
The weather’s trying to tell us something a space between places

We try to put the ‘mind’ incessantly thinking and the ‘eye’s mind’
As if the two were anything different the actual matter of print

Advertisement abounds this is a New York poem after all and
What would a New York poem be without advertisement other
Banalities gossip a little run-on conversation goes a long way

To understand the tragic that precious space cleaves thinking
And action shakes the leaves exhausted by an autumnal heat.

*"A New York Poem" will appear in the forthcoming Boog City New York Poetry Anthology.