"I've seen the lights go out on Broadway, I saw the Empire State laid low…"

Image by Rob Beilby

Tuesday’s sunshine dancing on the beggar’s dirty face,
passing steam-riddled blacktop, cracked backs and wailing.
Bakers and fishmongers, smell of a city waking,
bootleg vendors on cold street corners.
Two great arms outstretched, yawning,
kitchen prep work over boom box radios and
Spanglish conversations,
delivery trucks, squealing brakes,
curses spat at taxi drivers.
Coffee shop wi-fi, pigeons startled by a horn blast,
lithe blonde adjusts her skirt in an alley.
Don’t clean my windshield, pull up my window, lock my door,
green light freedom leaves him in exhaust fumes.
Sanitation noise and elevator silence,
Howard Stern broadcast over big apple airwaves,
pretzel pushcart declaring its slab of real estate
on Washington Square.
Headshop on Waverly, agency on Fifth,
laundromat on Delancy, theater off Broadway,
raising their eyes to a sky
that went from blue to gray.
We will have no strangers among us today.
The phoenix rises from its ashes,
no matter how great the pile,
and so we will raise a first glass in remembrance,
and then a second in reverence.