World Trade the Past for a Nickel

September 13, 2021, 9/11 Memorial and Oculus Transportation Hub, NY, NY
Oculus, show me what I seek.
For me it was never about the heights
Real New Yorkers(™) seldom look up
I was too young to be anything but real
not even myself, who looks up now.
But tunnels are an endless maze
in recollection, books, wasabi, vampires,
a pinky nail long enough to give the lie.
Winter and spring, it was the garden of my teenaged…
aged, if youth is a country lost
you can still visit the cavity, probe the hole and hope
you find more wisdom than stitches.

Matthew Nisinson (he/him) lives in Queens, NY with his wife and daughter and their two cats. He has a JD, and a BA in Latin. Each summer he grows chili peppers. By day he is a bureaucrat. His poetry has appeared in Boats Against the Current, en*gendered, Hyacinth Review, and Milk Press, among others.