What matters now

 A tree left standing in the 

jowls of the city. The long lost 

Judith floating from Venezuela
into my dream, whispering

 something that had slipped 
or faded like our sketchpad days, two 

teenage girls at the Brooklyn zoo, our 
braids pulled out from under red scarves,

 charcoal in hand, a stretch of horizon

and a tender courage to never

stop pushing

It came to that, to putting on paper:

the displaced lions, the caged bears,

and  forth from there to the city of men,

unrolling maps, charting some course,

incorrigible as humankind itself, relentless

as someone's dirty secret that in the

end is but a simple & reckless desire held

too far from the light of the heart

Will you believe me if i tell you

that one hour is better than none,

three days better than zero? Will

you believe in me?  You can ride

rail or elevator to the top

of the city, choose which open

hand to hold or close.  Survival

you see is a balancing act, & 

what matters now, to perfect

the art: the unshapely bodies

shining in some last moonlight,

bending under the sacrificed

treetops, a knowledge of all

that has come and gone, to 

curl within it, unfurl within it,

sin perder la ternura

jamás

-Miriam