Steve Brisendine's poem "New York Which is Not Really New York: Dream I"

 

                                                                                Photo © Alan Hainkel

Steve Brisendine is a writer, poet, occasional artist, and recovering journalist living and working in Mission, Kansas. He is the author of two collections from Spartan Press: The Words We Do Not Have (2021, nominated for the 2022 Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award), and the upcoming Salt Holds No Secret But This (2022). He was a finalist for the 2021 Derick Burleson Poetry Prize. His work has appeared in Flint Hills Review, Aji, Modern Haiku, and other journals/anthologies.

New York Which is Not Really New York: Dream I

North of Central Park, the city slopes upward
toward Harlem; its streets and sidewalks are
empty, and someone has taken down all signs.

I wait for someone, knowing and not knowing
whom, in the only place which is not closed:
a tiled, high-ceilinged lunch counter, where the
uniformed counterman silently takes my order.

The hamburger is better than passable, though
when I look away it heals itself of each bite: I
must not let myself get distracted, or I will be
here all afternoon and eat myself into nausea.

When I finish, even the counterman is gone.
A walk around the block to get my bearings
does no good; when I return even the lunch
counter has vanished. Perhaps it was never
there in the first place; these things happen.

There are sounds of excitement toward the
south and east, the first human noises of the
day. They grow louder east of the park, and
afternoon rolls back to bright midmorning.

I join a crowd moving farther south and east;
some chatter in anticipation, while others
begin to cry as we enter an open space.

This is what awaits those of us who have
not turned back in fear or fatigue: a flood
wall, high as a football field is long, covered
in bright green grass. Below, a gray X of
concrete divides a wide flat treeless lawn.

We have brought folding chairs; we set them
up facing east, sit with faces toward the wall. 

It is a pleasant nondescript day to die, though
no one speaks of that or anything else.

We all wear brightly colored hats: I cannot see mine,
because it will not come off. I think it is red,
a pillbox my mother left in this or that closet
    when we moved to the country.

The first wave strikes, flings spray a mile in the air.
    The second begins to overtop the wall.

The water is black; things with teeth move in it.
    I wish I had brought a book.

 © 2022 Steve Brisendine