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Consolidated Edison power plant in Manhattan (Hope Alexander, EPA)

 

—for Mo

With the feel of your lip balm I walk through the light,
sharp distance of skyline, sun setting behind—

did we notice the foam from the Con Edison plant,
the waves licking salty East River riprap,
exertions of earthworms in cold sidewalk cracks
or chill hook lifted from the homeless man’s catch?

We walked through the sunlight, gloved hand in gloved hand,
our uneven gaits catching patterns sometimes,
our voices unraveling unbalanced lines
that blended or clashed as they waved through the air

impressioning softly the far skyline walls:
the water, the worms, the city become
a room resonant with confusion and us.
We love this world so; we pour into it.

The concrete below me sounds heavy with pounding—
the light of your light in the air lifts it all.

Issue: 
June 15, 2018 [1]
Tags
Poetry [2]

John Linstrom is an NYU Public Humanities Fellow at the Museum of the City of New York and series editor of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Library for Cornell University Press. His poems and nonfiction have recently appeared in Atlanta Review, the New Criterion, the Antioch Review, and elsewhere.

Please email comments to [email protected] [3] and join the conversation on our Facebook page [4].

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Source URL: https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/found-city

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[1] https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/issues/2018-06-15
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[7] https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/print/40043