Saul Bennett
14
I took a train once from Antwerp to Brussels, sailing first
from Brooklyn where Atlantic freighters lay
beneath the Heights. But first I rode overnight
with mosquitoes from southern Ohio, pausing on the moon
in West Virginia, Grafton then Keyser, before first light
short of Baltimore. Those still on they offed at Jersey City,
the B&O left no Manhattan tracks. They crossed us on a fossil
Hudson ferry roped at Liberty Street, nodded us a dented
asparagus motor coach to the end against Grand Central.
A war before I routinely was brought by rail to the tropics
of Rockaway Beach. The Els of summer
turning over
Queensboro Bridge from Second Avenue
gave you to see the receding
sounds of the slivery city
from tiny open-air verandahs crammed with standees
on the Roosevelt Avenue tenement trail to the new planet
World's Fair at Flushing. Away up there Father never let go my hand
but Mother still, I'm unable to capture about.