New York

 

I know something about quahogs whelks and clams

here by the shell middens the rocky crust of the world

pushed out of the bowels of its flowering schist’s to make way for the pine

oak chestnut hemlock hickory willow and elm

but we are ancient and the shore is far away

a lip of stretched deer hide wrapped ‘round undergirded reefs of bright stone

upon which we ride the skinned barks of our intrepid souls

down the edge of the deep river lined with nesting piles of rock

cribbed like the woven oyster lattices astride the bay

and singing 10,000 years of a great city to rise on this spot

further away than any of us could ever walk

congealing like the shell heaps along the coves

into giant ruins of green moss covered chalk.

 

JZRothstein (final edit) 2/5/2014