Things Done in Cities

by Brett Rutherford

My Hudson-cliff view from Weehawken
does not efface the smear of it,
Manhattan clogged in its own soot,
the river gray-black with sinister flotsam.
The shade of sycamores and elms,
the brace of breeze and lambent sun,
the promise of golden reflections
if we wait for sunset — these things
cannot negate my friend Boria's lament:

"Peaceful from here, a birdflight
removed, a squint of street.
But still, the thought of the prostitutes,
the gaudy porno shops,
the thought of what might touch you
if you walked along Forty-Second Street.
How have we grown so base?"

I need but close my eyes
to remember slick Dimitrios
and his harem of underage
no-names, and how he sold
his brother's son to slavers
under the eyes of the officers.

Where?
On the steps of the Parthenon.
And when?
Just twenty-three times
a hundred years ago.

Weehawken NJ, Oct 2, 1982, rev. 2020