Marjorie Collins, Blowing horns on Bleeker Street on New Year's Day, 1943
Nitrate negative
Digital image courtesy of the Library of Congress
leave up their crèche the entire winter
so it blows wildly in the January
wind, the white metal-cut angel lit
and strung from a single cord above
the porch railing, her body tumbling, tossed
addled, contorted like the unfortunate
Salem girls and heralding always
heralding something crazily on her
trumpet something we cannot hear whereas
the family below, better anchored,
doesn’t have much to do but keep their eyes
on their baby, can’t even turn their heads
to receive the warm breath of the sheep,
observe the odd angle of the camel