AMY RITCHIE

SUNDAY AFTERNOON, TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK

from The Living Theatre (February 2002)

i
writhe/ing movement, arms
outstretched like a bird in flight
 

ii
bodies moving as one machine in sync
charas boarded up in a coffin*
 

iii
sniffing for the ungodly scent—the other
these are actors in an accusation
 

iv
love is a synagogue soup kitchen on a cold morning
 

v
(i skipped out of the cold to get coffee)
 

vi
a line divides the mutating majority
i stand still, holding open the heart of one
 

vii
the crust of wanting thick on his hands,
he works hard for his money
 

viii
you have dark skin around your eyes,
acquiesce under the throng of our public
 

ix
the flags of justice wave not on a pole
but in the windy tendrils of walkers walking
 

x
missing persons, you and i brother
let the circle be unbroken, by and by brother
 

*CHARAS/El Bohio is the community center between Avenues B and C, just east of Tompkins Square.

Amy Ritchie has read at local NYC venues including Cornelia Street Café, St. Mark’s Poetry Project, Bluestockings Bookstore, A Different Light Bookstore, the LGBT Community Services Center, and PO’JAZZ. In 1999 she self-published a collection of poems entitled Royal Bones. Her poetry has appeared in the Paterson Literary Review (Issue 28) and other writing in The Brooklyn Rail (Autumn 2002). This summer Amy participated in the Summer Program at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. For more information, check out www.amyritchie.com