Skyscraper

TWO POEMS

SKYSCRAPER

The purpose of its sex is obvious; the

body articulate and masculine. It

concedes nothing, yet the weak

flock toward its entrances, arterial

With tubes. Light and heat are incidental

to its chemistry. Even the sky is

invaded. Looking upward from the

street, the window spacing is absolute

As time and frequent as a death. None

deviate . . . I enter the elevator, and

mention names, but impersonality's

infectious glaze calls numbers only.

In the outer office, the wind moans by

steel window-sash, echoing the terror

of my being here. No other hand

constructed this; no brain conceived

So monstrous a detachment. I want nothing

in this place. I want the forest

crackling underfoot, the shimmering

perspective, and the autumn evening

Haze healing the light-splintered lake.

When the clerk departs, I slink into

the hall, and finding stairs, am comforted

against all eyes by the marble privacy

That alone reflects my flight's anxiety.

More than an alp, these walls, like

violence, can tyrannize. The accurate

patterns of bronze doors confer no

Lenience, and substance becomes the law

of idea. Perpetuated by pyramids, the

builders of the past would recognize

the deaths implicit in the stone.

Where I escape, the self-assertive avenue

points toward the park. Beneath the

: benevolent beeches, St. Francis of

the benches feeds crumbs to pigeons.