I wrote this poem years ago as way to deal with the attacks of September 11. On the the anniversary of that horrible day, I am posting it in commemoration.
The poem is written as a series of short diary entries. That is the structure. I lived on Broad Street, near the corner of Wall Street. The location is important both to the context and also to the word-play. Feel free to share your thoughts.
Moving to New York
by Larisa Alexandrovna (published in Heyoka Magazine - Volume 6/ 2006)
streets of going somewhere fast).
2000 -
Breathing in New York (alone, boxed away from knowing the grid,
grind, guffaws of the metropette, finding my little places that
made sense, books were places, the rest was dreaming)2000 - Me in New York (unpacked from another life where
soda popped and black was always in, replacing books with faces
and chairs with bodies became easier).2001 -
Living in New York (with my seat belt fastened, moving
from stop to stop in taxiettes, the ways, subways, alleyways,
some-ways were used for downtown drop offs, uptown uplifts
requiredwheels and I was happy to go in either direction
with my new faces and bodies, who now had names too).2001 - 9 1 1 (the
twins fell so no map was visible to anyone, not even from above
the world, bodies were the same as cracks on the sidewalks, even
walking ones - parts were in windows and windows were in parts,
the world was dusted over, monolithic steel caskets burned live
and in color but were called numbers counting down from
backwards in time, 7, 2, 1 and 0 became the ground forever).2001 - Leaving New York (with lots of boxes and no space to
pack - filled boxes make good distractions from memories
alongside the Broad/Wall in front of my kitchenette - no teapots
large enough to boil out books and chairs who once had
names) was hard.