Here, riding in a taxi on the Manhattan Bridge
late at night in a pit-pat drizzle,
everything looks puffy from the back seat window,
everything looks distant —
and it is, of course,
of course it is —
and I watch the glow from those
distant, yes, from those distant windows
as it fills the drops that dot the
glass and I see no trace,
no trace of life,
just a cold and jaundiced
light.
But I wonder
if I’m wrong. If behind the
glow of the high rise rooms
someone lives,
and looks,
and waits,
and looks at me,
and sees no life, no light,
even, but here,
only a faceless taxi
sliding by the side-rail –
moving faster and blanker now
towards the looming Brooklyn line, my thoughts
turn away again to my waiting bed and
the lights, yes, the lights all turn to
ghosts along the way.
