A questa Serra

Suspended on a mile of steel

the night of the twelfth of June of the year two thousand and six

I’ve come to realize that the distance between Truth 




and human  understanding

is as long as the Brooklyn Bridge.

I’m proud of this stretch (as Mayakovsky had once been),

straddling the boroughs on its wires, 

with nothing that’s non-manufactured in sight. 

This piece of steel is my daily bread.

Isn’t that what you’ d have me believe, Richard?

And, admittedly, I’m love with your sheering edges and your massive 




weights,

your strapping, proud volumes.

And their surface -oh the surface!- abrasive, primitive, and coarse.

So, would you have me scrape my smooth face against it?

Would devotion require blood, like with you-know-whom?

How appropriate that your slabs bleed too, that they get scuffed

and etched upon, graffiti-ed, spat, and pissed upon.

Denounced in demeaning disgrace.

For you should know, Richard,

that genius is never quiet.

And that the Brooklyn Bridge may be long,

but not quite long enough

to sustain us into eternity.