EMPIRE STATE

Before the viewing galleries were encased

in bullet-proof glass from ceiling to floor

there was wire mesh – with interstices

big enough through which to aim a lens,

and for Manhattan’s airs to freely pass.

Wannabe jumpers were deterred and jokers

keen to fly a kite above Fifth Avenue.

Late one sunny October afternoon,

when the leaves had begun to turn, we saw,

as felons might in an exercise yard,

the islands – Roosevelt, Staten, Liberty,

Ellis, and Manhattan itself – reduced,

and the sun begin to set over Jersey,

Ohio, the imperial geometry

of the states, a sentient jigsaw –

and imagined, as prisoners might,

autumnal prairie grass in Kansas,

eagles above the snow-line in the Rockies,

neon-lit diners on Sunset Boulevard.