March 15, 2016March 9th, Dusk
I wear my loneliness lightly, like a little plastic
poncho. In the evening when the park clears out,
the moon swells, mercurial. I am on medicine
for the visions, and so that I will not obsessively
check the news and the weather, as I have done
for the past 22 years. Sometimes the medicine works
and sometimes it doesn’t. The fact remains
that it’s warmer than ever: 76 degrees today
in Central Park. A silver maple burns beneath
the bridge. A sailboat comes apart in the pond.
Yesterday, a boy with a name like a poet
was stabbed to death in a spree in Jaffa.
We hear about him because he is American.
I imagine him crumpled on a staircase
above the Mediterranean, face-down
on the soapstone steps, like Maria Hassabi
mid-dance. Does it matter who did it?
Picture the sea from the top of the stairs,
pouring out beneath his body. When asked
about Mahmoud Darwish, Yehuda Amichai
said he did not agree with his politics,
but conceded that they shared a sea, a desert,
and a deep hatred of the other’s ideals.
We are, he admitted, writing almost the same
poems. Poetry becomes more popular
in times of crisis. By this logic I should be thrilled
to learn that herpes causes Alzheimers,
lead is seeping into the water supply
in Newark, and Zika continues to spread
in Brazil. Picture the sea from the top
of the stairs, pouring out beneath his body.
The American’s last name was FORCE,
like how you took me one night, gently, then violently,
the hard push into tomorrow a thin veil
for love. But now that you’re here, why not
take my heart. Sandstone, stuffed full
of letters, jammed and trampled and fortified
as the Western Wall. Go on. It’s the smallest corner
with the highest stakes. We’ll die soon
anyway. I’m giving it to you to take.
from Poets Respond