responsive-lightbox domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/sundre5/ducts.sundresspublications.com/content/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114Bright Windows<\/strong><\/p>\n Jackhammers rattled the walls with stammered curses & I daffodils so alluring, I can\u2019t blame them.\u00a0 One mother yells, I\u2019m gonna tan your back- her voice to whisper something about romance, about passion.\u00a0 The * * *<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n The Hungry & the Prey<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong>Three days & still no sun. gun-metal sky, the same purple every storm risks flash floods, but that might portent change.\u00a0 At night knock over trash cans.\u00a0 A dog bays * * *<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Hospital Serenade<\/strong><\/p>\n In the backseat of my mother\u2019s Plymouth * * *<\/p>\n In a Bad Time<\/strong><\/p>\n after Wallace Stevens<\/em><\/p>\n Because loneliness in Jersey City is all Bright Windows Jackhammers rattled the walls with stammered curses & I awoke from a dream of soft-spoken longing\u2013what I want, ungiven.\u00a0 The window, a rectangle of brilliance I couldn\u2019t enter; thus now, to retain some sense of holiness I go to Tompkins Square, but even the monkey bar set escapes the playground, sneaks in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2256"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2426,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256\/revisions\/2426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nawoke from a dream of soft-spoken longing\u2013what I want,
\nungiven.\u00a0 The window, a rectangle of brilliance I couldn\u2019t enter; thus now, to
\nretain some sense of holiness I go
\nto Tompkins Square, but even the monkey bar set escapes the playground, sneaks in
\nthe fenced areas to dance where it says not to tread.\u00a0 The<\/p>\n
\nside<\/em>.\u00a0 She pauses before they both laugh\u2013he hasn\u2019t taken the proverbial yard,
\njust wants to loaf in the grass, little Whitman.\u00a0 Now
\n& then I can still hear work crews\u2013steel grates crashing into place, &
\na vagrant offers to trade a hug for a dollar.\u00a0 Maybe
\ntoday I\u2019ll tell the woman I love that I love her & she will take down<\/p>\n
\ncity of my heart is always under construction, it seems.\u00a0 Alley
\ncats yowl in heat, its children grow into leather jackets.\u00a0 Where
\nare the priests who\u2019d forgive us these trespasses?\u00a0 The park holds little solace, the
\ngrey squirrels on his haunches begs for scraps\u2013this city of charity,
\nTompkins Square awash in morning light.\u00a0 On the swings those children
\nshout louder than hardhats, their voices bright windows of play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nNo precipitation either\u2014
\njust the same<\/p>\n
\n& white flowering trees.\u00a0 In East Texas<\/p>\n
\nright now I\u2019d welcome rain
\nor anything<\/p>\n
\npossum & raccoon rattle & scratch,<\/p>\n
\nin fits of longing, then others
\njoin in, howling.<\/p>\n
\nI learned the melodies & most of the words
\nto \u201cSummer Breeze\u201d & \u201cAmerican Pie,\u201d
\nsinging along with Don McLean
\nalthough I didn\u2019t know what a levee was\u2013
\nor whiskey or rye, for that matter.
\nHow strange it must\u2019ve been\u2013I was three,
\nsinging This\u2019ll be the day that I die<\/em>
\n& it may have been, actually, when that car
\ncrashed into an ambulance . . .
\nLike so many incidents, I still have the scars
\n& a memory\u2013am I making this up?\u2013
\nme singing in Maimomedies Hospital.
\nMy mother says still today she loves
\nthe voices of choir boys, but I imagine
\nher terror when a different ambulance
\nwhisked me away, my blood splattered
\non the dashboard (this was the 70s
\nwhen seatbelts seemed so unnecessary).
\nThere had been an accident:
\nimagine her worry, her heartache,
\ncould I recognize it even then
\nbefore I possessed the language of empathy?
\nI sang & she cried & so I sang.<\/p>\n
\ngrey stones & grey pigeons, I left it, & the rain
\nthat seemed ubiquitous & ambivalent both,
\n& the pedestrians with their packages.
\nAt that moment my life seemed like a continual conversation
\nwith a silent man, or perhaps, more accurately,
\nlike two mimes communicating, for I had nothing
\nleft to say, & what Valentines I\u2019d received
\nmight as well have been postcards from a volcano
\n\u2013all distance & heat & bearing the possibility
\nof disaster.\u00a0 So I did what I had to do:
\ntook a holiday in reality by crossing the Hudson.
\nIn Manhattan\u2013that golden woman in a silver mirror\u2013
\nit was raining too, of course,
\n& as it turns out the men who are falling
\nin New Jersey are also falling in the Village\u2013
\nfalling in love or into despair or
\ninto themselves.\u00a0 Every handbill advised
\nhow to live, how to be, but I refused it all
\nfor it was an evening without angels, without fanfare
\nwithout anybody pointing me out on the street, calling my name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"