I can't remember what propelled me
out of our bedroom window onto the fire escape
of her fourth-floor walkup on the river
so that I could see, as if for the first time, sunset
and the front settling down on the dazed city,
as tugboats pulled barges up the river.
Barred windows glowered
from the other side of the street
while the sun deepened into a smoky flare
that scalded the clouds black as knights.
It was just an ordinary autumn shower,
the kind I had witnessed before--
but then the rain came almost unnaturally
into a rusting, burnished, purple red haze
and everything ceased bursting into flame.
The factories poured smoke,
trees and shrubs turned to shadow,
pedestrians were extinguished
Storefronts went blind, cars
drowned on the parkway; steel girders
collapsed into the polluted waves.
Even the latticed fretwork of stairs
where I stood, the first stars
climbed out of their graves
branded, lifted up, consumed by rain-fire.
It was like watching the start of an end,
like being dipped in wet-flame--
And then I closed my eyes and it was over.
When I opened them again
the world had reassembled beyond harm.
Foghorns called out to each other,
and the moon rose over the dark river,
a warning.
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