Penn Station
In 1975, they realized that the stone
edifice had drooped in the sun
and the weather which blew clouds
whistling around the warm old
marble and winding staircases
had disappeared. And Dodgers
Stadium had been built brick
by brick and cold flat plastic
over the graves of ancient
communities, flying in the
faces of angry neighborhood
owners, who would
hold a grudge for the
next fifty years, until they
slumped from inflexibility. These
Atlantean monuments rose
slowly through gang infested
park landscapes, a
pointillist feud that involved
searching into some
reflection of the past, its
landmark a slide which chips
away at pieces of nostalgia,
the memory of an old wound.
The years, ultimately, don’t mean
much to these great buildings,
their staircases clipping with sound,
from babies in carriages clopping
to the neat frame
of expensive shoes forged from
animal skins. A million
different images from as many
mornings. All moving to make
way for what we imagine might
come next. Later, still.
***
