New York, it used to be called something else, but that is the past. The place where the tallest things are is an island. And at the tip is the place where the tallest two were. As I approach those memories I step off the Wall Street subway and ascend to the cross of boulevards fixed with their neon and marble facades saying things with words and numbers that move at such a speed that they make up all our economy.
Then I turn a corner and there is only a lot of space beyond liberty plaza, beyond the big red sculpture that suggests some sort of rupture. And beyond that are the cranes saying something new is to come to the sky. I imitate their momentum. I take my hands standing them upright to the place that once held so many stories. And I cover that place that lays so barren. Some temporary something. Then I flip away my hands and hold them down against the street moving it like a strobe light scanning the ground. Round and round New Amsterdam. The name this island held before it was New York. And now, who knows how many names this ground has held…

Tags: Grond zero, NEW YORK, NYC, prose, world trade center

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