Saul Bennett
June 15,1904-September 11, 2001, R.I.P.
Prior to 9/11, the greatest catastrophe in the City's history
occurred nearly a century earlier.
My father, I see on the Web today,
was born the June day
in 'Ought-four
a thousand or more
Died
When the grand excursion steamer General Slocum
burned -Jesus! - in the East River, itching me
today to wonder, my grandparents
(and, if so, in Yiddish probably),
Did they ponder
at length in their little walkup
in the afterglow of the home
birthing of their third son?
Why I bother now
who knows,
though I feel the need to divine
the measure of my blood's humanity.
I happen to possess
New York's long-deceased
Evening Mail - the very issue -
showing in still lives the Slocum's end.
In oddly rigid black-and-whites
with obituary borders
one floats across the blurry scenes
smelling flesh. As these cindered
Children,
mothers,
aunts,
what have you,
Were gentile, a mass
of church picnickers, Grandpa,
perhaps,
felt further removed?
Or!
though something of a growler,
perhaps,
almost, wept?
And!
as his trade was tailor!
thought to rush by trolley to St. Mark's
German Lutheran, down, across
To lower Second Avenue
unclaimed clothes,
perhaps,
for the rare survivor?