The Hudson crashes into my legs,
in the rush hour, in the overnight hours.
Sunshine breaks open the dawn sky,
but the heat doesn’t heal the frost-wounded violets
nor does it spare the clock-faced passion flower
or the golden chrysanthemum.
I stretch bi-state, one hand holding
the borough, the other clutching Fort Lee.
Standing this way for so long, wide arms, outstretched,
has taken a toll on my posture.
He would be disappointed,
the man who’s name I take as my own.
The one who deterred the British,
and I the one who can’t even deter the falling.
A boy walking along the free foot traffic
tightens his white knuckles onto my side.
His tears taste like the spraying mist
of the river below when they fall
on my face, and I know this one is different.
Fourteen lanes grumble in my belly,
but I push that all aside to be with him.
He’s unsure, undecided. Hesitation in
his steps tell me this isn’t suppose to be.
It’s sudden, spontaneous, a solution
to something that can be simply solved.
I push against the soles of his shoes
to let him know I am here, listening.
He was not holding onto me, but his shadow was.
“Are you with me on this one?”
The music in his voice is a bow dancing
sweetly across a four stringed instrument.
I carry the weight of his pain on my back
so it won’t follow him to the bottom.
It’s the least I can do. My arms don’t reach.
He’s flying now, his body secretly
Kissing the Manhattan skyline,
Do I blame our country? Another Country?
James Baldwin? Or Rufus Scott?
Would it happen if it never said it happened?
Somewhere the sky is falling
Somewhere else it gets back up.
* This poem was published in the award winning Northridge Review, Fall 2011
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