HOW TO TAKE A LUNCH BREAK

Today, at lunchtime, I wish my eyesight could take me with it,
to glide the oil-slick East River waters, or to hover
in a nest of cool shadows beneath the Brooklyn Bridge,
and hear the cars screaming past, voices trapped
in their own relentless momentum.
Today, I wish I had the wind for hands,
so I could strum the steel twine of the Brooklyn Bridge
like a Marx Brothers’ harp, and play out the rapid pulse-rate of this day.

Today, I wish for an end to things—or a beginning.
I wish the “Watchtower” clock across the river,
which flashes the successive death of each
passing minute, would suddenly tell a new story,
would proclaim in a crowning digital display:

NOW
NOW
NOW