The Breathing City
written by: Nesbit and Gibley
@nesbitandgibley
The train ramps over rail bumps, a beating heart beneath our feet.
This old thing has life, given by those engineers who worked
in the tunnels with headlamps and wrenches,
lining the ground with tracks, like veins and capillaries,
with ventricle metro stations that feed the passengers through
to the stairs, the entrance pushing air in and out as lungs would.
The turnstiles pulse as they thread the men and women,
all tiny blood cells in this city that breathes,
all amassing to this functional being someone called
New York City.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
Sylvia Plath’s description of New York in her novel The Bell Jar inspired this piece. While she depicted the city as stuffy and rather foul, she brought it to life, presented it as a concrete giant that had swallowed her whole and she couldn’t bare to be inside. New York is a fantastic city. I’ve been there twice and found that it really was breathing with life, both in the people and the streets, the skyscrapers and subway.
- Emerge - May 8, 2017
- Ordinary Me - April 10, 2017
- Spotlight On Writers – Nesbit and Gibley - April 1, 2017
