The City

The city is frozen but it never stops just goes

on as in on the street outside our hotel

with the mermaid-themed décor a woman

is walking her dog and in the bakery

behind glass the strawberry-glazed cakes

keep on shining like mad and at Rockefeller

Center wall-to-wall tourists turn and turn

to gawk at the Christmas tree just like

they’ve been doing for a million years

its lights colored small stars smaller

than we expected its shape a bell

drowned by buildings and combat-gear

guards but still still still there’s something

here a kind of motion I want to take with us

all the way back up North on the dark,

cold ride to Massachusetts where I’ll set life

on a shelf and watch as it pulls fine

fiery dust out of the late afternoon air.