9/3/04
By Anyssa Kim

And the quiet shrinks into my breast
Like dead fish.
Fulton Street is alive catering these deaths–
I hear their mangled suffocations
Between wailing car alarms at 2AM
Mourning the previous day's losses
The East River has developed
Sleep apnea. It tosses out its dark dreams.
I reach out, arms tight with want.
A cold glass fills with blood on Water
Street, stones and knives
Along the contemplative bridge
A helicopter chops sky:
To drink a city
To chew a river
To smash my epitaph open
Where my mother aborts me again
Humming through
A requiem of melted snow
Arsenic is in season
Freezing notes in our hearts.