| 11:18a |
Totally shameless Hecht
Here in the haywire weeds, concealed by wilds
Of goldenrod and toadflax, lies a spur
With its one boxcar of brick-colored armor,
At noon, midsummer, fiercer than a kiln,
Rippling the thinness of the air around it
With visible distortions. Among the stones
Of the railbed, fragments of shattered amber
That held a pint of rye. The carapace
Of a dried beetle. A broken orange crate
Streaked with tobacco stains at the nailheads
In the gray, fractured slats. And over all,
The dust of oblivion finer than milled flour
Where chips of brick, clinkers and old iron
Burn in their slow, invisible decay.
Or else it is late afternoon in autumn,
The sunlight rusting on the western fronts
Of a long block of Victorian brick houses,
Untenanted, presumably condemned,
Their brownstone grapes, their grand entablatures,
Their straining caryatid muscle-men
Rendered at once ridiculous and sad
By the black scars of zigzag fire escapes
That double themselves in isometric shadows. |