Above It

It’s not that I don’t know it when I’m in it,
searching for a spot to park my liquid
assets or, faster than a New York minute,
remit them into gritty circulation,
while heels and tires haul their various freight
around for public estimated valuation.

It’s just that, as the plane gains height and veers
first left, then right, I hear some inner guide indicate
the topography: Atlantic Ocean, here;
Ellis Island, that splotch down there, see?
Observe the mighty grid. (It looks like a grid.)
East River; Hudson; bridges—one, two, three—

Mid-air and miles above the hand-over-fist,
it strikes me: that’s our soul. We do exist.

—Anna Lewis