The History of the Lost Voices

He paces the kitchen waiting for the riverto empty its boatload of shadows.

There's only water playingat the theaters, people silent and holding hands

because of the rain which is how the worldsounded before it was born.

Dawns and evenings he writes to the same seagull:In Manhattan the river is always drowning.

The glass towers drift west with their voices lockedin elevators, and the animals that can never again be slaughtered

or healed. My home used to be the most beautiful waitress—we had a car that dressed in high school gowns.

A year after she died I watched a man jumpfrom forty-two stories and vanish into a plummeting window.

Adrian's thirty now, spends his time crawling aroundin the sky which he says is a kind of soil.

Most days the city is quiet as yachts shiningat the bottom of the East River.

And though you breathe a month in front of me I'm waiting for you.I'm growing into what's left of the red sirensafter the fire engines have galloped away.