| Haywire |
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I.
They came from heartland’s America
to see New York City, not a six minute movie unwinding into a deli
where this group from Ohio sat chomping on thick pastrami rye
mustard squirting out and
oh my such a funny smell in the air...
busy gorging on New York fantasy
didn t see death rush down five flights, feel death brush against
them with bulging knapsacks of marijuana;
felt like extras in a movie
with cops rushing about, then
something went gun-shot wrong
speeded up, broke out of the film
leaving three dead bodies, two wounded blood splattered Pollock
walls before the ladies could stop chewing long enough to taste
fear through hot mouthfuls
II.
Four months minus a day later,
three minutes, half the time...
Happens all the time in Manhattan,
a woman gets in the way of someone’s urge, is pushed in front of a
train or struck from behind with a brick, can never be explained
even as we do it: food, sex need to hurt kill what’s in the way,
gives some logic comfort...
to survive we take shelter in routines don’t see what we’re seeing
as we walk to trains buses
that morning may have voted first,
I did... felt the first siren’s needle prick I’ve grown numb to in
this city of my birth, only didn’t stop this time like some
mechanism failed, broke...
a few just waking turned on the TV,
a foreign war movie in progress on our streets....
funny how fast wars can spread
a few thousand people be in the way
lines that shouldn’t be crossed are:
your country / mine, borders
behind which we feel safe vanish in
a single toast and coffee burning morning;
same movie every night now:
screams pitched too loud for
the human ear break out over the city, same nightmare: we all know
it is only a dream:
we all know we will never wake from it
© 2002, Linda Lerner
Linda Lerner is the editor of Poets on the Line & the author of six collections of poetry. She wrote “Stone Soup Revisited, A Homecoming” for About Poetry in 2003.
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