In the cities there is nothing
to milk but time. You are spared
the poetics of rote labor.
There is no duty to recall
in that strange awakening
of late adulthood
mother’s feathered hands
or the careful thud, thud,
thud of father’s boots trying
helplessly not to wake you yet.
In the cities when young
men find themselves wearing
their own fathers’ rent vestments
they do not smell like
dirt, shit, and oil.
They smell like paper
and staples and the florid
lining of a brass-clasped
briefcase swung swish,
swish against a silk-slacked
thigh.
In the cities young fathers
grow up slight and light
because their histories weigh
less and don’t ask much
muscle to carry around.
They lack the heraldic sound
of the only engine in a morning’s mile
being turned churlishly over and
breathing exhausted clouds into an
unhidden sky. But in the city in
the street where a thousand engines run
you don’t hear a single one.
Andy Havens 