February 2021
Sarah White
sarahwhitepages@gmail.com
Bio Note: I live in New York City, painting, writing, reading, and entertaining cautious hopes for late 2021. This poem, first published in my Cleopatra Haunts the Hudson, honors a sign seen in a Paris bus: Ne vous mettez pas en situation irrégulière, which seems to me very French, saying do whatever you like, but try not to put yourself in an irregular situation.

City of Remembered Cities

A river divides our city in principal parts.
Bridges are named for leaders,
wars, and lovers
who walk beside the river.
 
High bridges
display the craft of engineers
and spiders. Low bridges, covered,
figure in watercolors.
 
A corridor connects Bank
Boulevard with the Avenue of Groceries,
Inns of Court with Courts of Art
and Offices of Diagnosis.
 
Those who know who they are
Are asked to be Governors, Those who don’t
are asked to be performers. Passengers
are asked to avoid irregular situations.
 
Thanks to alphabetical order,
the city remains grammatical.
Tallness rhymes with smallness.
Beside the Spire of Triumph
 
Burns the flame of our irreparable loss.
©2021 Sarah White
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