I had given this photo by Berenice Abbot as a gift to my former husband who was a New Yorker and pasted this poem on the back of it. I had a habit of doing that--many of the art photos in my home have poems on their backside. Now my youngest son lives in New York. This poem is right for him today. It was published in Ekphrastic Review.
Nightview, New York, 1932
Inspired by the Berenice Abbot photograph
Here it is: a cozy of gems stitched down your sleeve.
Blood pulsing
hot against your temple.
You hold the lights like children in your gaze.
The tempo of traffic.
Inhale the shoe polish deep in the subway.
Shoulder the cold as if it’s a woman you can’t leave.
Heidi Seaborn