City Lights
        

       Noticed
       a minute after midnight
       in the slick aftermath 
       of rain:
       so many, pendulous drops 
       cling to each black umbrella,
       hang from every wrought iron bannister,
       weave through the hatched, underfoot subway grate.
       They glean the night.   
       Each drop holds
       a muted filament of 
       neon, headlights, 
       and siren colored patrol cars;
       each trembles
       to the patois of Manhattan,
       the sway of the IRT,
       the battle against gravity,
       the vertiginous desire and death of the city.
       This liquid, this quivering light, 
       the same as collected by your eyes, and mine,  
       the curve of the world, brimming over.


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