Stewart
Brisby
Poet/Writer
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Archived
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| PUBLIC SCHOOL 168 |
| is abandoned like some remnant of time-soaked simplicity. a childless carriage on the east side of harlem. a smile dances when i envision small hands pledging allegiance to manifest destinies in which they were not included. from a rooftop you hover like a gothic ghost above st. lucy's church where black robed nuns carried rulers & bars of soap like guns strapped to their waists speaking in tones of catechism & guilt. do you remember the eyes of the children? lunch room smells? the song of forgotten games? "red light green light one two three" i stand now before your shattered broken face kindergarten laughs echo the schoolyard & i remember palms of hands & eyes of children. before we embraced the city before we met the man who ate glass and asked about our dreams. |
Stewart Brisby
(from A Death In America © 1986)