A Night in Brooklyn

We undid a button,

turned out the light,

and in that narrow bed

we built the great city—

water towers, cisterns,

hot asphalt roofs, parks,

septic tanks, arterial roads,

Canarsie, the intricate channels,

the seacoast, underwater mountains,

bluffs, islands, the next continent,

using only the palms of our hands

and the tips of our tongues, next

we made darkness itself, by then

it was time for dawn

and we closed our eyes

and counted to ourselves

until the sun rose

and we had to take it all to pieces

for there could be only one Brooklyn.