NEW YORK
1985


Madame Curie was once asked if they could
Baptize a race horse in her name
                She ran quick as light  Fast as the 
                Beauties burning the track at Aqueduct

We had a racetrack in our backyard.
                It
        wasn't ours but that's where Great-Grandma's house was
        114th Place butting up against the back fence of the Big A

Where the alphabet of family began
Where the storyteller threatens the king

                        This crowded infamous island
                        this
                        boat of refugees
We went away
We returned 
We went north then east Driving
through moonlight quiet as new snow

All the animals that are mine are
falling into the chaotic light
                        Mother pitches her tent at York and 77th
                        Father calls to say he had a tooth pulled
                        !Replace it!
                        with one the color of your lost trumpet

There are panthers in the night sky
Wolves in the soft arms of snow
Lemmings close their windows on the delicate balance of nature
                Manhattan as Hungarian countryside 
                Horns bleed brass
                Young girls cut off the heads of bears looking for princes

The marrow is crumbling
None of the scream is Outside
                        They obey the
                        traffic lights from a factory in Brooklyn
                They do alright--
                They can't complain--
OF COURSE it haunts me !
No one looked back
No one can say FOR SURE what happened to
Lot's Wife

I sit on the fire escape above Cherokee Place
Pianos spill out the windows
Every story above sea level

The wine is six years old and 
bloody
My lover inside
whistles a
Spanish peculiar to Argentina
                                He pulls a T-shirt over his head
                                Blows me a kiss
                                Returns to his wife and kids in Gramercy Park
I toast the humpbacked
moon between buildings, the
City who loves me such she
leaves me alone

        then returns
                each one of these hot July nights with his
                own key
        The City 
lets himself in where I've left my
                skin by the fireplace
The City
takes me 
                to the little park between
                Cherokee Place and the East River Esplanade
The river cools the air
And the iron benches
and the iron bars
        The City
                loves me here in the
                Second Language of the world
                The whole of our lives 
                below the shoulders above the knees

One night I
Look up
The dark
human outline against the park gates
Someone is there I whisper 
No one can see us He says
                I am not frightened
                I move on top of him
                I turn my head to stare in defiance

        Then I forget
How many windows the ex-prizefighter says there are-
Driving us through the park in the horse and carriage -
How many windows there are in Manhattan

I bend low to his ear:
Ain't this a shinin' love?



The prairie dog stands at the
entrance to the fabulous City

You go under to 
get home
Its violent hollow riverbeds

and on the Lexington line the violin spills the deaf man's sonata

Old man bleeding into lunchtime on the
little island of Herald's Square

I had six bucks in my pocket. 

                We go to the window
                We put the money down

It was my day to to the OTB run.

                Some play the horse
        Some play their fabulous names  
                Some play the rider     
                
Doris put down 2 on a horse with a name like Africa.
Nereida played 3rd horse, 5th race:
Her man Easy's birthday.
I played Eddie Maple To win.

Old man
Vein like a small animal pulsing in his temple
He'd fallen against the railing
He'd hit his
head
He'd peed in his pants

                We wait at the windows or
        
        What is he 
        Drunk? He's probably
        Drunk
                On Fridays Nereida collects .50 from
                each of us
                The newspaper guy on the corner where she comes up from the
                subway
                books on the side
                
        O there is a well
        When you come to town stranger 
        I'll serve you its water
        Its water is hard

He was not there He was
Not There like the A-Bomb ticking in the sky behind god
        In that Black Forest only a virgin walks through the necklace of
        bees unstung

The horses leave their heads in the stables of Central Park
        They are
        in the taxi with us now
        Quiet
        and running
with
Our dreams 
waiting to 
blaze or burst on the 
back page of the Daily News

Come this way.
Naked on Sunday when God isn't home.

The road's a hazardous place once you
cross that George Washington Bridge

                It's not there.
                It's not there anymore.
Korvettes.
The playhouse on 23rd off 7th.
The old man bleeding into lunchtime on the little island of
Herald's Square.



And??
Did they 
call the horse Marie?
Did Lot remember to tell his wife NOT to look back?

There were women then who sold 
Mushrooms and fresh eggs to the survivors of Auschwitz...*

(Their long march through horsemeat across Hungary)

When it rained the women never moved from their spot.
They merely pulled their skirts
over their heads...*

                
                        And laugh in his ear
                        when the boy wants to  
                        Go Round The World              

There's nothing to be frightened of! 
in the
heart of darkness women excel
They look back in defiance at the
City cupped in rivers
City even the dying stare out from Lenox Hill Hospital say
The lights. The lights are beautiful.


*from The Reawakening, by Primo Levi

The window closed before I got there. Surely if you'd been
there you'd of
heard a woman scream and (all of them)
No one (Who can see us)
Answer.

Surely he was somebody's son.
I never moved.
I stood on the little island
Broken head in my hands
Lead skirt modestly covering my eyes

        The old man I cradle is crawling
        out of the earth
                shedding his skin
-Are you his 
Daughter?
                
        The cops took him away to
        Bellevue

-I am the daughter of Marie
                                who walks on water
                                who manages to always win
                                                        place
                                                                or show
No one takes me away
Not rain
Not Yahweh
Not even the destruction of the cities
takes me away

                The tribes build and
                        bury, build and
                        bury

Thousands
                colliding under the river
in the train like an
atom smasher
                hurtling home impersonably close



If they'd all looked back they wouldn't all have
turned into salt!
                In the pure
                science of the City the children of Marie sleep with the
                Sun and Moon at the same time
                The Popol Vuh says you'll dies doing this
                                and deserve to

The pale rider neck and neck with prophecy
Down to the level of cell: You cannot interrupt Marie.
She
passes through all the windows
She comes 
again and
again like the
Horse to America