As I cross the river on foot

a tower disgorges a cataract

of sun streaming down its windows.

This elaboration suggests hands

of a bronze clock striking noon,

but it’s only a skyscraper full

of dogged suits and ties straining

against tottering stocks and bonds

while looking forward to lunch.

I used to work on an upper floor

but grounded myself deliberately.

You stuck with the program and earned

a retirement in comforting pastels.

All day you shop for the perfect

handbag to tote the shrunken heads

of your lifetime of small enemies.

All night you listen to jazz greats

lilting saxophones into the sky.

I street-walk the city and sigh

the sighs of seismic old age while

you brush past in taxis, grinning

as they consume their fossil fuel.

I suspect from your silent pallor

that you’re thinking about the art

in museums that your patronage

props against the dissolution

that will announce itself like cymbals

striking a lone but fatal note.

William Doreski

(Image plucked from the files of The Drifter)