Saturday, December 19, 2020

Four Fabric Squares from Christo’s Central Park Gates by Patricia Behrens

We waved to each other across Cathedral Parkway,
yours an extravagant wave as if you’d braved perils,
traversed continents, not simply come uptown to meet me

to explore this northern section of the park, festooned
in fluttering orange banners. You led us along snaking
rocky paths, sometimes walked ahead

last year’s chemo-slowed gait now vanquished.
We goaded each other south through the February cold,
smiling at strangers, led on by the saffron-arched walkways,

the distant sightings of orange through branches.
Blue sky, looking up--these were pleasures again, when
so recently they had made us think of too-low planes, falling towers.

It was as if billowing fabric had released our grief,
allowed us to recover breath. You turned back to me, hatless,
pointing to some fresh shimmer, spoke, too far away for me to hear.

Why do certain moments freeze in memory?
When they took down the banners and recycled the fabric
they gave small cloth squares to people who asked.

I have four in a clip on my desk. I picked one up today
and smoothed its curled-up edges, recalling how the show
was made to be a temporary wonder, was never meant to last.



Patricia Behrens grew up in Massachusetts and now lives and writes in New York City. Her poetry has appeared online and in journals such as American Arts Quarterly, Mom Egg Review, Perfume River Review, and The Same and in the anthologies Nasty Women Poets: An Anthology of Subversive Verse and Vine Leaves Literary Journal: a collection of vignettes from across the globe.

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