Look how morning has come back larger than yesterday,
more birds, more clouds, more room under the Walt Whitman
bridge for boats crossing in fog. More road for my commute
            across the water, raising my metal cup to daybreak over
            New Jersey, my body barely electric at this hour. I am a brown
            trout in a six-lane river, swimming with the swimmers.
Alive to a fault, I merge lanes, turn my wheels toward
the guardrail where the armies of those I have lost line up
to flank me on the way to Philadelphia, faces hidden under
            their unearthly arms. I lure them into my car with the scent
            of coffee, with radio news and weather, with blades of sunrise
            cutting the dashboard where Our Virgin is glued,
holding her hands out to the world. I say, tell me
you still love me, and they roll the windows down, laughing,
tongues flapping, full of words I’ve never heard.

—Arlene DeMaris

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