Dispatch

My mother, my father, my husband,

currently poised … a coincidence?

on three separate continents.

 

House-mates, Alef and Simone

bring me sake’, borrow my hammer.

The work goes reasonably well.

 

Because the seasons do not belong

to us we think we can put them on, like

garments, and cast them off at will.

 

Above three thousand degrees

even rock takes on a viscous state.

 

There's no better  way to describe it.

There is no way to explain it away. Peace

for me is order, balance and symmetry.

 

Only with things laid straight can I breathe.

In my particular space, after hours of solitude,

coming to rest, only with  white cup and pungent tea.

 

Alef doesn’t believe in curtains, so

much can be seen from her windows,

including the trains,  elevated.

 

And never  far from the high-pitched whine

and the throaty roar of the city's need

for movement, profit and trade.

 

The taxis go by, dispatched from one place to

another.  Incorporations with names like

Firefly,  Motivate, Exultacion 

giving body to immigrant dreams.

 

Give and take. Give and take.

The traffic moves and repeats itself,

never the same stream twice.

 

 

New York City, 1987