YOUR BIRTHDAY

YOUR BIRTHDAY
Jersey City, NJ

In honor of your birthday
I fed the pigeons on the pier.
A few showed up, then a few more.

Seagulls arrive to watch from a distance
Squawk for their friends to join the scrim
For pieces of bread I've cast off for them
Into the Hudson River shallows

But mostly today,
in honor of your birthday
I fed the pigeons
on the pier.

- By Anthony Buccino
from SIXTEEN INCHES ON CENTER

For my dad, the proud pigeon flyer.
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

COLUMBUS

COLUMBUS

What do you see from the shore?
You don't see the sea.
Not really, you only see the river.
There's no one I'd know to taste the water
to see if it's briny like the sea
or fresh like a river.
I'd rather die
than drown in this river.
What did Columbus or Henry Hudson see
when he first sailed this route?
This river like the ocean that spits out sailors.
This river where you can catch a slow boat to China.
Other people come to look at my rocks here at low tide.
They look at my sea.
What do they see?
Whatever it is,
it's not the same as me.

North of Harborside
a stranger talked to me
of the fowl in view
three first-downs into the river.
He was from Washington, D.C.,
and he told me what kind of birds they were
so far away from us.
He said they had the same
kind of birds in the Chesapeake Bay.
I haven't seen him since.
And it's just as well, I suppose.

The seagulls watch me for bits and crusts
I might smuggle to the sea.
Quickly you'll learn
that feeding a seagull
is like petting a dog.
Now the seagulls have learned
to eat the bread
and leave the rock salt.
These birds, their ancestors
knew this place
when there was nothing
but trees as far as the eye can see.
Did Henry Hudson ever notice
that no two clouds are the same?
Or try to put a hat on his shadow?

- By Anthony Buccino
From ONE MORNING IN JERSEY CITY

Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
******************

WALKWAY

At lunchtime I tromp the long macadam trail
beside the Hudson River.
The Manhattan skyline is across the water;
you can’t not see the boxy towers, on the left
the north one’s got the TV tower,
the twins twice as high as everything around them.
They steal your eye from wherever you look.
The Jersey City skyline – a mangle of construction cranes
and glass buildings – has got my back.
Between opposing architecture helicopters buzz up
and down over the neutral river
on somebody else’s important business.
Seagulls squawk.
Ferries scurry across the water and back.
The Circle Line tour boat trudges upriver.
Low tide uncovers green rocks footing seawalls.
Some day you’ll walk this walk from the Statue of Liberty,
past the Colgate clock through Jersey City to Hoboken
and Weehawken, too, and rest, finally under the GW Bridge.
Meanwhile, nervous waves bash against green rocks.

- By Anthony Buccino
From ONE MORNING IN JERSEY CITY
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.

SAILBOAT

First you want a body of water
To look at out your window
Then you want
A sailboat to float by
On the shimmering sea
Then you want a body
Steering the sailboat towards you
It should be someone sexy, you say.
And the sailboat, slick and sleek
As it approaches your shore
Then you want no window between
You and the sea, a summer breeze to blow
Wisps of sea spray to keep bugs away.
Next you want more vacation time
To sail away on the sea, and that, my dear
Is why you can see no sailboat, or foamy water
You see nothing from within your cubicle

- By Anthony Buccino
From ONE MORNING IN JERSEY CITY
Copyright © 2010 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.