The Dead Reveal Secrets of Brooklyn

We are frequently asked, what is death like
?
Like tossing a frisbee in Prospect Park, making sure the release is free
of any twitch or spasm-- any trace of the body's vacillation--
willing the disk to glide forward of its own momentum, never veering, in
a trance of straight lines.
Like waiting in traffic at Bedford Nostrand, waving away the squeegee
man with his excessive grin and red-veined eyes.
Like lying under your lover in Crown Heights and divining a
stranger's face in the dark flash of her pupils.
Like fishing off Brighton Pier, casting into the dim whitecaps and then
counting, reeling, counting, while the bait in the bucket swims in tight
circles, huge eyes staring upward.
Like growing old in Flatbush on a block that reeks of dry cleaning where
you nod to three neighbors and avoid the gaze of a fourth though a
single brindle-tailed cat belongs to every dark garden.
Remember, death does not last, not even for a breath, whereas the city
goes on forever, Cypress Hill, Gravesend, Bath Beach, avenues screened
by ginkgos, vehemence of domino players hunched over folding tables,
range on range of padlocked factories that once made twine, hammers,
tape, and now make small nameless articles which we use to bind, shatter
or seal, here where there is no self, no other world, no Brooklyn.