Classic Poem

I (Broadway at 104th)

A heavy-faced man
in a brown suit. No tie.
Nineteen-forties fedora. He sees
a little wizened balloon —
a green one —
like a winding-down butterfly,
or a frog, perhaps, stuffed with buckshot,
unable to rise but trying
to rise — a faint
erectility there in the ditch — the
literal last gasp
of somebody's party. . . . This guy
detours to and stomps on it. Then
nothing's left, just a green smear,
and he moves off, muttering. . . .
What