Marshes Under Mannahatta

Secretly, like fire. Apartments touch a bang touch in nineteen something nine. All shining wood grain is covered with rusted hasps and squares. Names in the ceiling own their leaving faces. Antic ghosts stay lonely in your dream each night, until you make a sea to drown. They are satisfied and leap and gulp air with anti-joy, sleeping for collision. Frantic cities gather your ocean, building sky arms and tangling your lungs. Everything that was above is under. Surprised faces glint in little mirrors falling from pockets and purses. People see that they themselves are mere image. Saws and hands warble, nothing. Nothing when you look at the time. Nothing when the bridges are lit with sailors’ fire.