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Barge Lights on the Hudson
For Dana and Mary Gioia Glass door to the balcony slid open, We step from the party to a night so clear Only diamonds could scratch it. Below us, River barges look like floating dominoes, And we seem to hear boatmen singing, but that may Be simply chanties from another condominium Along these cliffs. Hours, you say, Should pass as slowly and as beautifully As those lights on the Hudson. Leaning here Against the railing, shoulders barely touching, We play a child's game of connect-the-dots To bring out of the dark a tiny tugboat In which a phantom pilot, legs spread wide apart, Wholeheartedly steers-his face Rimose as the moon's. One by one, Others join us, until all along The balcony a line of men and women Lean and whisper, staring down, and some Say the river's asphalt, others that U-galaxies drift there, Or we are in a science-fiction movie Watching starships in a planet exodus Across the Coalsack. Soon, however, The party flares up in the living room, those few Who linger here grow silent, watching until all Lights disappear toward Troy, and just the oars Of Irving's ghost row out from Tarrytown.