Lower and Lower Manhattan
As I cross the river on foot
a tower erupts a cataract
of sun streaming down its windows.
This elaboration suggests hands
of a bronze clock striking noon,
but it’s only a skyscraper full
of dogged suits and ties straining
against tottering stocks and bonds
while looking forward to lunch.
I used to work on an upper floor
but grounded myself deliberately.
You stuck with the program and earned
a retirement in comforting pastels.
All day you shop for the perfect
handbag to tote the shrunken heads
of your lifetime of small enemies.
All night you listen to jazz greats
lilting saxophones into the sky.
I street-walk the city and sigh
the sighs of seismic old age while
you brush past in grinning taxis
as they consume their fossil fuel.
I suspect from your silent pallor
that you’re thinking about the art
hung in museums your money
props against the dissolution
that will announce itself like cymbals
striking a lone but fatal note.
Author: William Doreski
0 Comments