National monument: Castle Clinton, and: Minor characters, and: The night is coming on

National monument: Castle Clinton
Castle Garden was the point of entry for immigrants between 1850 and 1890, when Ellis Island was opened.

Robert Moses wanted to tear it down.
He was good at that. But history
buffs mobilized. It was restored:

to what? The 1812 fort. Just
what we all need, an unimportant
military position, walls and cannons

Castle Clinton as a bloodless ring
of stones staring at rough grey
water attacked only by gulls.

Eight million people trekked through
Castle Garden with rough bundles of hopes,
ragged with fear and hunger, children

clutching their mother's drugget skirts,
a procession of shawls bowed down
by whatever they could carry or drag

disgorged into a park where dapper
folks listening to a band play marches
glared at them, set upon like quail

by a pack of snapping dogs – recruiters,
boardinghouse and brothel keepers,
those looking for the cheapest

labor they could wring work from.
Eight millions staggering ashore
from steerage, danger nipping

at their heels, trail of blood.
No, that would be a dismal monument,
monument to sweat and dirty rags

monument to real bony forebears
who suffered to arrive, shoved
out those massive doors into a city

waiting with iron teeth to chew them.

Minor characters

The people we think are walk ons
in our major dramas, whose names
leak like tiny grains of couscous
through the sieve of our brains:

people who say hello in the drugstore
asking after our partners or pets
and we have no idea in hell
who they are and a weak smile

bubbles between our teeth
while we try to fake it: she's
the secret mistress of your loved
one who doesn't know her yet.

Then there's the guy in the woods
practicing with his .45 all
morning and with each shot
he sees your head explode.

You are incidental. He just
dislikes you enough to make
you number seven on his hit
list. She remembers how when

she said, how do you like my
whatever, a dress, a poem,
a speech, a dish of salmon loaf
you waited too long before you lied.

Behind us as we stroll uphill
and then down, crushed egos
like broken toys we stepped on
litter our steps. Somewhere

even now, a boy you insulted
in the supermarket is planning
to ruin you and drink your blood.
Or maybe she has totally forgotten

your name and your face is pushed
from her mind by the force
of her genius, and you won't even
rate a footnote in her memoir.

The night is coming on

The sky is a pale wash of lavender
but here on the earth, it is dark.
I can no longer see your face.

You are a shape filled with shadow.
Your hand drops on my shoulder
and I shudder with surprise

and the sense of what seems
to be coming with the night
that rises from the undergrowth

surrounding us with dark urgency:
raccoons skirmishing, coyotes
on the prowl, a possum crossing

the hidden road, bats flitting round
a light on the neighbor's deck.
All creatures are stirred by hunger

of a sort. The nerves in my core
begin to smoke. I wait for you
to strike and fill me with your need.