Tuesday 6 November 2018

New York

New York,
I hit Time's Square
and Central Park;
I hit the blaze beneath
your ferocious ego.

And then,
New York,
I met with your nakedness.
I saw the tears that poured
down the sides
of your scars.
They cut deep in a concrete

that'd stood so self-assured.
I glimpsed your grief
and nakedness,
New York.

Passing what was left,
I thought the New World
and history,
I thought the rain.
I thought the subway,
the people,
the people who'd chosen to fall out the sky
to die
rather than be burnt alive.

New York,
I saw your nakedness
and stripped robes of pride
laid out
in the form of holes in the ground

that tried to make space for mourning.
Steel had risen here,
had waited for the day of nakedness.

New York,
we all arrive at the nakedness.
Some, through beaten, burning towers
sinking dust
through the narratives of life.

New York,
I walked Broadway
and couldn't find the words to work you out:
too large to fit an idea.

But when I saw your nakedness
- two holes in the ground,
the names of the dead -
I figured you're but human.

And now,
New York
- as large
as the rest of the world -
you carry your wound
for all the world to see
since your towers fell
to graves in the ground

and the nakedness came
in a way
it's never meant
to come.









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