Urban Renewal
The sun slides down behind brick dust,
today’s angle of life. Everything
melts, even when backbones
are I-beams braced for impact.
Sequential sledgehammers fall, stone
shaped into dry air
white soundsystem of loose metal
under every footstep. Wrecking crews,
men unable to catch sparrows without breaking
wings into splinters. Blues-horn
mercy. Bloodlines. Nothing
but the white odor of absence.
The big iron ball
swings, keeping time
to pigeons cooing in eaves
as black feathers
float on to blueprint
parking lots.
Copyright Credit: Yusef Komunyakaa, “Urban Renewal” from Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems. Copyright © 2001 by Yusef Komunyakaa. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Source: Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)