Today's poem is by D. Nurkse

Carriers
       

1
A soldier in fatigues stood guard at Grand Central, his camo helmet cinched low over his eyes
The smoky-blue perforated muzzle pointed at no one in particular. He peered openly at his
phone. In his slant-lit face—a child's, really—an event was taking shape.

Bride and groom lingered hand in hand on the steps to Beth Elohim—waiting for what? The cue
to leave? Confetti swirled around them. Her free hand flew up to parry a toss of rice. Was that
gleam a cell? Was she taking a selfie? No, she was rapt. Her face was a screen. A shadow
crossed it at startling speed.

In Fort Greene a mother perched on a stoop to nurse her child, blouse hiked, breast quivering.
She glanced at her palm. The light left her eyes.

Boys were tranced in a game of stickball. Batter stood waving his broomstick defiantly, in high
tight circles. Pitcher rocked back and forth in his chalk square. The air between them was
impenetrable as time itself. But all the other players—shortstop, center fielder—kept peeking into
their cupped hands.

Here comes the little kid who lugs the water bucket, awed at the magnitude of his task,
staggering, pausing every few steps to admire the minute wave, and to blow on his inner
knuckles. But a signal pulses, his eyes narrow. He reaches for his hip pocket. He drops the ladle
and takes a few steps backward and now he has disappeared among the dusty elms of Prospect
Park.

*

My wife and I lie in the unmade bed. The street outside is tense as a cat. In the hush you hear
every faint siren. Saint Luke, Maimonides, Methodist.

Her cheek pulses with the rhythmic glint of chargers. We speak softly. As if the silence could
hear us. We hold hands. We stare at the monitor. All we see is the radiant human face. A white
line of numbers inching across the bottom of the picture.

Slowly the camera pans across the city that was ours.

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Copyright © 2023 D. Nurkse All rights reserved
from The Manhattan Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission