O Málik! I pray thee go for the wine full early, 
And if it be dear to buy, then buy it dearly! 
Bethink thee how once a grizzled old tavern-keeper, 
Whose whiskers were black with blowing the tarry wineskin,
I called, as he lay where slumber had stolen o’er him — 
His head sunk low, the left hand’s palm his pillow; 
And he at my cry arose with a start of terror,
And hastened to light the wick, and it flared, and straightway 
His terror was flown: he had gotten a look of gladness 
And gaily haha’d—a clatter of idle laughter. 
When now by the flame my features were lit, he gave me 
The greeting of love, asked many a courteous question;
And into his hand I counted a thousand dirhems
To lodge me a month, with freedom for either party.
I found in his pleasure-domes two noble virgins
Of family high and proud, and became their bridegroom.
’Tis thus I have ever lived and am living ever,
Away my religion goes and my wealth in armfuls.
As oft as we meet, I like what the law forbiddeth,
And never can bear to like what the law hath hallowed.

Hello Leander, tucked into cloth, tiny lion
who yawns through the virus and tear gas.
You are a new scent of heat.
Before any scar grazes your legs
I would show you the rows of bicycles
in burned colors, and whistles and cardinals
who pin the cold snow. You hold a small
share of what it means to be here.
When the air shatters around you,
gold and marine, please know you belong.
You are half sky, half butterfly net, alive
to friends and strangers, fast to net
and trust. There is nothing
that is not worth much. Arrayed
in overalls and tackle-box, you should grow
to see the deep green rains, the roads
brushing the clouds. To compass
all you have done from a porch in late life
and listen to the bees who, woolen
and undeterred, have returned. I hope
you stay warm inside the white dusk of
morning. No one stays unscathed
but you have days of summer to grow
into your thoughts and learn the great
caring tasks. You have yards of treelight
to race through under the birds’ low song-
swept radiances. The trills you hear
are glass grace. They are singing.

^{Roosevelt Island, New York City}

^{The fourth is freedom from fear . . .
—Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
Annual Message to Congress January 6, 1941}

^{The weed is the Nemesis of human endeavor . . .
—Henry Miller}

Then—as if someone had switched on a black light in the sky—
 
the traceries of dread just visible all around her, the curving
       trajectories of each possible disaster
 
once seen, now indelible
 
*
 
Bristling stems of mugwort sheared to resemble a lawn
 
rhizomatic: ineradicable
 
each torn scrap giving rise 
to a new plant
 
hundred 
handed
 
*
 
The Penitentiary Hospital
The New York City Lunatic Asylum 
The Blackwell Island Workhouse 
The Smallpox Hospital
The Charity Hospital
 
“our standing army of paupers, criminals, and sick poor” 
 
This whole repurposed
Island
 
dry sponge of rootstalks, map
 
of the neural pathways 
tunneled out
 
by fear
 
*
 
Her eight-year-old at the beach adorning
 
his ring of sandcastles with bits of shell and twig reciting the “Day 
of Infamy” speech, “we will not only defend ourselves
 
to the uttermost
but will make it very certain
 
that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.” The crumbling 
gray crenellations
 
*
 
The smallpox 
hospital “our only 
landmarked ruin”
 
“No Trespassing: Structure is unstable” the winsome
 
insinuations 
of bindweed
 
at its feet
its gaping gneiss face blushed
 
with Virginia creeper its body a copse of sumac
 
*
 
In Korea, smallpox is referred to as “Your Majesty” in an effort to 
      appease the god.
 
Eradicated circa 1980. 
Who now will ride
 
the horses made of straw 
made to tempt the smallpox
 
spirits to ride home? 
 
*
 
Plaques of cellophane 
 
stillness
subdue the East River
 
The tram released like a dispensation across the swollen sky “the line
      of flight
 
is part of the rhizome. These lines 
always tie back to one another.”
 
Garbage circulating underground 
soundlessly, a system
 
of pneumatic tubes
 
*
 
The monument’s honed granite 
perpendiculars
 
a luxury of specific intention, like all luxuries most
 
poignant at its defined 
edges, subject
 
to encroachment, exhaustion
 
riprap
loosestrife, prostrate spurge