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Nothing Beside Remains


by Bill Yarrow


It was the early 80's. My students carried
guns. My colleagues died of AIDS.
My bachelor neighbor was a cineaste.
I walked the rent-controlled boulevards
of Sunnyside and watched the glib sun
set over loquacious Manhattan. Every day's
evaporated apogee had its inky epitaph.
We exist only insofar as we are remembered.
The time we went to Carroll Gardens for fake
IDs. Spending New Year's Eve in LeFrak City.
Eating hot coconut kishke from Zabar's.
Dreaming of the Ely Avenue Cleaver.
Under the bridges of Kew Gardens Hills
the invented truth still has street value.

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