How to Get There

Turn left off Henry onto Middagh Street

     to see our famous firehouse, home

          of Engine 205 and

Hook & Ladder 118 and home also to

     the mythic painting “Fire under

          the Bridge” decorating

the corrugated sliding door. The painting

     depicts a giant American flag

          wrinkled by wind   

and dwarfing the famous Brooklyn Bridge

     as it stretches as best it can

          to get a purchase

on Manhattan. In the distance a few dismal

     towers and beyond the towers

          still another river.

          

A little deal table holds a tiny American

     flag—like the one Foreman held

          as he bowed to

receive gold at the ’68 Olympics in Mexico

     City—; this actual flag is rooted in

          a can of hothouse

roses going brown at the edges and beginning

     to shed. There’s a metal collection

          box bearing the

names of those lost during the recent burnings.

     Should you stop to shake the box—

          which is none

of your business—you’ll hear only a whisper.

     Perhaps the donations are all

          hush money,

ones, fives, tens, twenties, or more likely

     there are IOUs and the heart

          of Brooklyn

has gone cold from so much asking.

     Down the block and across

          the street, a man

sleeps on the sidewalk, an ordinary

     man, somehow utterly spent,

          he sleeps through

all the usual sounds of a Brooklyn noon.

     Beside him a dog, a terrier,

          its muzzle resting

on crossed paws, its brown eyes wide

     and intelligent. Between man

          and dog sits

a take-out coffee cup meant to receive,

     next to it a picture of Jesus—

          actually

    

a digital, color photograph of the Lord

     in his prime, robed and

          though bearded

    

impossibly young and athletic, and—

     as always—alone. “Give

          what you can,”  

says a hand-lettered cardboard sign

     to all who pass. If you stand

          there long enough

without giving or receiving the shabby,

     little terrier will close his eyes.

          If you stand

there long enough the air will thicken

     with dusk and dust and exhaust

          and finally with

a starless dark. The day will become something

     it’s never been before, something for

          which I have no name.