In the wintery distance, almost completely
obscured by the sand-
colored steppes of ivyless brick
notched impressively, here and there,
with gaudier bullets
of gunsteel and glass—
a dogged shambles of a sentinel,
the city's last
tired and cantankerous protector
can yet be glimpsed
grieving
grieving
that old world cataclysm.
Still new this
sense of
plain vanity, he hovers evenings
in his cloistered limbo—tearless
and tilting
just a little bit, as if preparing slowly
to turn and go,
but
still arrow-
headed, deadpan, pitch
black—with resolve.
