Approaching New York
                          
                            by Michael Beyer

 

                             Gray arches of the bridge

                             coming down over me.

                             Trucks flying by.

                             So dark in the car.

                             Queens Bridge

                             and all of Manhattan

                             in front of me.

                             It’s on a strange insistence

                             I’ve come here.

                             A man’s memory is a gasoline

                             moving him forward,

                             forward to a derivative

                             but I do what I can.

                             How the road leans

                             to where I’m from

                             the corners and criminals

                             the slapped-face deli drunks

                             the women under archways

                             and the around-heres

                             I’ve seen

                             are all inside me still

                             in an urge that leads

                             to new openings

                             like water dropped on water

                             with me with

                             a new start

                             in those big lights

                             the city.