The Dawn

Dawn in New York has
four columns of mud
and a hurricane of black pigeons
splashing in dirty puddles.

Dawn in New York groans
on vast fire escapes
searching among the edges
for nard of outlined anguish.

Dawn comes and no one receives it in his mouth
because morning and hope are impossible there:
sometimes the furious swarming coins
drill and devour abandoned children.

The first ones out know in their bones
there will be no paradise or loves that blossom and die:
they know they'll be bogged in numbers and laws,
in routine games, in empty labors.

The light is buried under chains and noises
in a lewd threat to rootless science.
And sleepless crowds stumble through the boroughs
like they had escaped a shipwreck of blood.

continue with Dales Smith's Lorca Interliner >>