For non-Brooklynites, these take a little intro. The BQE is an elevated highway, hideous and inspiring running like a gray ribbon between those boroughs. Sufjan Stevens wrote a whole symphony about it. It's an eyesore and frustrating to drive on and your only option and wonderful and unique to Brooklyn.
The Gowanus Canal is the filthiest piece of water in America. It's a national health hazard and the EPA has stepped in. The bottom is covered with shopping carts and rusting iron. The top is floating with grease and algae that has living samples of gonorrhea in it. That's right. You could get an STD from swimming in it. Also a baby whale got stuck in it once and was cut apart by the metal maze in the water. Very sad.
I wanted to write some romantic verse about them.
1
Brooklyn winter breaks
slow as iron in water
hide me Gowanus
2
night traffic mezzo
headlights point home, cars yawning
circling for some sleep
3
the moon on dimmer
how needy the limbs of night
caught in wan spotlight
4
canal full of eyes
bodies adrift in freezeless sleep
I will find you all
5
great grey artery
if I cut you, would you spill
all your red riders
6
whale catcher, release
or clench, keep your dinner tight
be jealous of now
7
canal means lost vein
the moon said it could mean much
the moon is bloodless
