1.

Before the fall a white-haired guard wearing

a blazer, tie and straight face stood sentry 

for forty years, as tourists rode a lift 

to oversee the Empire’s overlook.

 

A TV man asked the retiring guard 

to recall the building’s upstaging: how  

shadows cast from twin colossi rising 

had grown taller, taller than the tallest.

 

The towers reached highest height on such a

scale it might have tipped the borough’s balance,

the pivot line marked along 14th street,

downtown pushed down, raising uptown up.

 

The old guard glunched, pointing toward the towers: 

“They look like the box this beauty came in.” 

 

2.

But they built two! Matched only to themselves, 

and to memories of youthful migrants,

pilgrims to the 70s city, fledglings 

looking skyward for the tempo and cool 

 

conferred on those who sought a ride atop 

the wave. These young cared not how skylines looked 

before the towers had taken root, as with  

Bridges that render Crossings obsolete.

 

Late night youth retreated to tiny rooms, 

fifth floor walk ups, with bathtubs in kitchens,  

odors in hallways, parsnip in the soup, 

Foul, stained garbage bags down metal shoots.

 

But as they greeted the new sun each day,

the towers, in ribbed houndstooth, stood stalwart.

 

3.

Coffee, regular, buttered roll, the Times, 

a midday slice and dixie cup of Coke, 

Running, running until dusk descending 

classes adjourned, youth weighing evening plans,

 

that just might start, refreshing one’s pallet,

with a quart of cold borscht, sour cream dollop,

pastrami sandwich piled high, extra napkins 

in hand to mop grease from the chin.

 

This was living! the lure not lights so bright 

but daily rhythms, don’t touch that dial,  

chess games, no kibbitzing, pick up hoops 

in high-fenced playgrounds, towers looking on

 

with their random blocks and stripes of lighting 

switched on and off by nighttime cleaning crews. 

 

4.

A score of years (+) has passed since the fateful

end, unspeakable, contemplatable 

mainly in silence, for some in prayer, in 

remembrance of those who never returned.

 

Would be monuments, titanic ships, should

warn of illusion and limitation.

Skylines and shipping lanes become filled with 

paper props, so convincing they may be.

 

Before the fall the Towers kept careful 

watch over young supernumeraries, 

some from the provinces, cast in grand opera,

accompanied by the night train’s rumble.

 

Heads still bow to mourn loss that hurts the heart, 

not looking skyward as they had before.

​

("September's before" by Eddie Roth first was published in August 2024 here in The Eddie Roth Reader.)