Night of the Gowanus

The drum track refers to matter’s tendency to integrate
while the notes that make up the melody assert themselves
as individuals, the way particles constitutive of wholes
always do, recapitulating the dynamic equilibrium of the universe.

Streams of tail- and headlights on the curve of the viaduct
outlined like clip art with the peach tones of sunset under it
and above it a sky’s ombré of icicle-to coal-blue—where a faint few
stars think things over—refer to motorists

as iridescent geometrics on the rippling face of the water
refer to the coal tar dumped into it by industry for
over a century, sludging the canal bottom in thicknesses equal
to twenty mattresses piled one on top the other, as in a fairy tale

of sensitivity, except these mattresses are irrevocably toxic,
and the princess is a phantasm of oyster shells
and auto parts, parts likewise of bodies disappeared here in the dark,
lives grieved without finality as the canal itself is grieving

the tidal inlet of bright creeks intricate with water life
it used to be before Dutch settlers perplexed it into property
from the Lenape, humanity again done in by its own traffic,
confusing its light with stars, to whom such details matter nothing.