Today from Hoboken
the New York City skyline
turned into a fruit roll-up,
so I peeled away the buildings
and ate them one by one.
Their flavors were not
as satisfying as real fruit,
yet there was something
nice about the invention.
– If I am not mistaken, a blue
raspberry cannot be found
in nature – nor can a 130-
story skyscraper. But either
way, it was not soon after
that my stomach felt ill
with the rumbling of people,
the ones that had lived
in those buildings
I had just eaten!
How could I have been
capable of something
so dramatic? The eating
of a city? Now New York
is different. I am its
only building.
Detroit writer and poet Ian Brown currently resides in New York City where he is receiving an MFA in poetry from the New School. Author of 3 chap books and recipient of the 2009 Jim Cash Award in Poetry, his work can be found in such places as PANK Magazine and the Best American Poetry blog.
