ManicDDaily

MayDay Night Lower Manhattan

Helicopters strap the sky here as
the President speaks from Afghanistan, of
the deaths that laid
their ash a block from where I sit and so
many more since.

Earnestness
in the half-shadows below his
eyes, and I wish hard
for time to pass, to get, fast, to whatever
date he speaks of–that date that date that date
while copters buzz-saw the night, weedwhacking
lamplit peace, and I wonder
whether they are on the look-out for
terrorists or 99 percenters?
Nearly every wall here bordering Wall, so is it
retribution or redistribution that
they target?

I don’t know, only that
the endless tomtom (blades blades blades blades)
triggers a quiver in my innards, and I feel
thwap thwap
histrionic, yes, still
buzz
like a woman whose husband–New York–
has beaten her enough that
she listens hard now
for his return, any love left pleated
with dread.

Is his step heavy on the stairs? Is his lurch hard?  Goddammit
they are really coming
close—
though what she mainly hears is her own
strained breath, her hovering heart, each
swallow.

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Agh!  A new poem written for dVerse Poets Open Link Night, hosted by Natasha Head (Tashtoo), under surveillance of endless helicopters down here in Lower Manhattan (even as I hope that Obama’s speech means we are moving closer to some kind of negotiated peace in Afghanistan.)