The City (poem)

The City

From a tower eye, an orange-red van

Bread loaf squat

Windscreen a picture, the day’s spattering weather

Wiped in an arc to mimic the arena’s design

That municipal failure condemning the horizon

The van amid trucks that glitter with a gun-barrel coat,

hundreds of white sedans bought off the lot,

passes over the concrete stanchions

A box

A carpet on the floor in a sprawl

Of spilt-flesh forms, presaging

A wall

A rule on paper

If we understood this fault of human nature

Sick minds and spoiled ones

Put their fingers through the ceiling

In the private booth, the private bath

We excite the bondsmen

with the notion of a finer stadium

For sport

The Tick of a Second Hand

(2015, Stephanie Foster)