Buildings suspended
In fifteen thousand feet
Of montmorillonitic clay
That go down almost as far
As they go up
Terrible, low center of gravity masses
Sprouting from a humid drainage ditch
And the city
Is spreading still
Crawling up and twining around
Freeways that snarl and snap
Against restraint
(And briefly I stop and wonder at
The cool curves of
A cloverleaf junction, the
Clarity of the concrete loops
Placed just so, neatly as in
The level design
Of a computer game)
Here there are
Vietnamese street signs
Halal taco trucks
Slabs of red-shifted darkness
Hanging on a chapel wall
Here there are
Impassive blondes
Driving blue-eyed cars
A smog stunted tree
Crammed with dark birds
Singing with rage
By a mirror glassed window
And the glass aches to be sand
And the sudden rain aches
To fall in a lagoon
And the ozone laced air aches
In the lungs of those
Chosen to wait
For a bus that may arrive
When the fossil crinoids
In the travertine facings
Reanimate and sway like lilies
In a invisible current
And in the brief twilight
Everything is drenched
In a deep azure
As if the day's events
Are winding down
At the bottom
Of a shallow ocean
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