Walter Holland | Sunday Morning, New York 1987

Hopper would have seen the deception of the light

which covers these red brick walls where you once lived.

The painted lustre of these blackened roofs

speak of art, but cannot speak of life.

Now in hospital rooms others die.

Under the city’s silver towers,

the sycamores have budded. The sun is bright on the reservoir,

departing jets fly east.

A radio outside my window spills rap music into the street

and two girls dance under a tree.

I remember the bar on Columbus last night,

blue light streaking the faces and one

look which grazed my eyes like an August day on which

open fire hydrants gushed into the street

and Puerto Rican men sang

under the dim light of office buildings.

I remember you in the corner of that white room

you body in the folds of the sheet

and the weight of your arm.

Time goes on now in offices, in the cavernous streets

where newspapers move with the wind. This was our world

unsung and dead. In the noisy rooms, in the passing night

laughter, it is you I remember.