About Floyd Bennett Field

Jeffrey G. Moss

February 11, 2024

Out here the Canarsee  — in the Lenni language,

Canarsee means “fenced-in community” — 

once paddled and fished these barrier marshes. 

Now the migrants from the Mexican border are bussed

blind to the southern shores of Brooklyn, the broken

land Dutch settlers swindled from the native people. 

Out here Howard Hughes and Wrong Way Corrigan 

took off, and John Glenn, after sustaining 

transcontinental, supersonic speed, landed. 

Now this tattered, temporary tent city, 

pitched on historically cracked tarmac,

warehouses the poor, cold, huddled masses.

Out here the winter winds bite and sting.

The sanctuary city’s distant skyline prompts 

salty tears, like those that flow at births and funerals.

Jeffrey G. Moss spent 32 years guiding 13/14-year-olds in crafting worlds. Since leaving the classroom his poetry and creative non-fiction have appeared in Hoot Review, Humana Obscura, Cagibi, Hunger Mountain Review, Under the Gum Tree, Hippocampus, and elsewhere.