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Some Good ReasonTo Joseph O'Leary's previous piece     Post-Millennium DepressionTo Joseph O'Leary's next piece


For New York

you can't see them
you'll never remember
what they looked like the last time
you saw them
because you can never look
at something like as if it were the last time
because you never really
believe there will be one

you don't fear death anymore.
you're never sure if you did
in a strange way you know
you're safer
because the world has moved.
you are riveted.
everything in your life means a 
little bit more of something.
you name it.

your arms are branches and
your fingers root the sky
you lift up your soot stained
face to the world's eyes and 
get off clean. in history
you are complete. in god you 
are breached. in sorrow, you
are justified
for all want you open the markets of the world
and they think they want you to say
that you had to but you know better.
and you cry.

so come down and rain
away the smoke that seems
it may never go away

I want a promise I'll be proud
to walk under. Let those who dedicate flesh
rattle the girders above me. I'll throw my fist
under their soles. Let them
feel what it's like to put rock
to the spiritual and castigate an entire MO
by stretching once more

I'll not see my last time 
When I see the curve of the earth
once more available
to anyone 
who chooses to laugh by my side

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