Classic Poem

How beautiful is the ugliness of the city
on certain days
when a heat-wave breaks and a west wind
leans on the tenement cornices,
loosening pigeons
into small tornadoes of wings;

when acres of refuse under the starved ailanthus-
trees in back alleys—
peels, bottles, cans, burnt-out pails—
sparkle; and, creaking their pulleys,
the sheets on clotheslines
thud like square-rigger sails.

Each angular canyon of laundry then is a clipper.
Its pavement heaves
like a deck and momentarily spears,
bow-geysering, legendary waves,
toward what gay occasions
from frayed posters of other years!











By permission of the author.