Running along the Red Hook piers,

warm sun punches through the autumn wind

to meet my face. Most of the time, 

it’s too hard to have a body:

bones break, muscles tear, ankles turn.

Everything can go wrong, and will.

It’s only thanks to dogged will

that I set out, headed for the piers.

Two straight streets and then a turn

at the park, where gusts of wind

barrel hard against my body.

I’m trying to make time

go by, but it resists me. Time

is nobody’s servant, will

ignore the shrill demands my body

makes. Believe me when I say the piers

are long. Believe me that the wind

is strong, the streets turn 

jagged, the cobblestones (picturesque) turn

out to be unwieldy. There was a time

I faced a different headwind,

subject to a different will.

Now as I approach the piers,

in my fragile, worn-out body,

I could be anybody.

I push myself, count breaths, turn

over steps and then I’m on the piers,

and I release my grip on time.

I keep going. I will

or won’t get faster. The wind

will do what wind

does. Wooden slats reveal a body 

of water beneath me. Will

the little waves return

to brush the shore in time

to meet me on the piers.

What a turn

to be in time

along the piers.