Commissioned by the National September 11th Memorial & Museum
& their hearts are shards of stained glass
& their eyes bottle-green & incanting
the whole of this city & the whole of the city i have seen
in the humidity
sobering the great rose window of st. john the divine
-ly unfinished of the city
the whole of the city
where one cold february in the bronx it was snowing
& soren & i wrote love poems for garden-goers
in the conservatory among succulents & palm trees
& carnivorous plants behind glass whose green hearts dance
in supper clubs of brighton beach
another time the whole of city
in winter stole & long-gloved
the fearless girl of bowling green
lays her weary head heavy
in the chapel of temple emanu-el
where the stained glass speaks
of a sprawling city dreamed
but never finished, the whole of this city
& darelo & i take the second avenue subway
& still don’t quite believe its existence,
though third rail, live wire, heartbeat.
& 7 train love brings me home, though signal malfunction,
though delays, though local turns express midway & doors
don’t always open
without the whole of the city
filling us all to the brim.
& i have ridden my beloved 7 carrying post-heartbreak
jerusalem, when more than once i was broken glass
shattering in the midharov
empty on sabbath morning.
& in these shards are the stained-glass angels
i have wrestled in the dark,
wrapped around their soda-lime
limbs like potter’s wheel.
& only in my beloved’s arms do each day i awaken
in the whole of the city
as lasting & green
as the kind of fragment
you plant & let broken-be
“Poet Wrestling with Angels in the Dark” was commissioned by and written for the “When The Towers Fell” Public Program at the National September 11th Memorial & Museum.
