I used to see it
prominent in my bedroom window,
the two stacks towering,
forming one entity:
silvery monster with a line
huge foot holding down
its corner of the concrete island.
I used to see it
without seeing it
knowing it was there
like oxygen or the erupting
forceful core of the earth.
A stark, incense-smoke-colored
presence--
now a harsh shadow
sad as chanted Latin
or a rigid contoured
pit ready for a coffin.
Now it is a place
that is an anti-place,
a place where creeping unwanted
knowledge of heat and fire
forced itself upon
a mother a son,
a daughter, a spouse
known to me.
And don't forget
those dazed by surprise,
besieged, doomed strangers
I will now never know.
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