Walking over Brooklyn

Trails of black smoke from the incinerators;

Bits of cardboard flaming in the cage

On top of huge chimneys.

You are walking over Brooklyn,

Climbing the space between planets.

You drift over the bouyant dome

Like a traveler looking for his son,

In a country flattened by storms.

Far below the streets have an odor of childhood.

Rows of clotheslines like an unsteady road

Where only ghosts can walk;

The murderous echo of boys at play

In the long shadow of the tenements.

You can hear them climbing toward you. Listen!

Pulling you down like a weathered kite,

Hand over hand. The first few steps

Take you furthest from yourself.

The old people sit at the dinner table,

Their bodies clasped over the shell

Of the long days. In their eyes

Vast corridors are lit by candles,

Like the pure distance I once tasted

In my blood.