She says, there is another city, exactly like this:
same sardonic cat, complacent dog, fat-chested sparrow
trilling its brains out before daybreak, identical abandon
and thrilling sorrow, familiar machinery chuffing
in darkness—belt sander, leaf blower, radial arm saw.
But that world is Queens, this is Brooklyn.
The law is like wind; it has no self.
There Frank Viola stars, here Julio Franco.
Here light is a wave, there a particle.
Here we marry, we grow old in a tiny house
with a porch swing and complicated locks.
There, you plod through deserted chain stores
in search of someone you cannot know. Here
the names of God, blurted from passing cars.
There, the milk truck and its loud crate of empties
This poem originally appeared in the September 15, 2011 issue of the magazine.