It looks like Roosevelt Island
is going down
sinking like a second Atlantis
becoming far greater
in memory
than it could ever hope to be
– if Islands could ever think.

Manhattan is divided
into tribes
cliques
that war over imagined differences
– same as it ever was.

Brooklyn is burning
and the Bronx is long gone.
The rich abandoned this town ages ago
finding cooler places
to while away their lives.

The fogs
the riots
the food lines
and rats
all push the city
away from what it was
and into what it is
– and it different now
than the city I lived as a boy.
It is smaller
with more pitfalls and snakes
but I wish
I could go back
one last time
for Billy at the Garden.