"Fable of the 20th Century."
"The conveyor belts bearing hubcaps and loneliness
were everywhere, and the invisible ruts in the air
could transport you for a lifetime if you weren't careful.
Monotony had a hair trigger, and there
were machines that sounded like the sea
and put you to sleep if the jackhammers with something Oh,
when the sun broke through the pink haze of our luxuries,
lovers fell into the same ancient swoon of photosynthesis.
But at the same time, the ledgers of motels
grew spectacular with aliases, and the nights came down hard
with quiz shows and melodramas.
Opportunities raised themselves alongside highways
in Dayglo and boldface.
The suburbs were crowded with manuals,
and the chickens stopped clucking on the farms,
yet there were eggs for everyone.
And some of us were happy for hours, days, weeks.
Even in the subways, there were people to love.
There were children who ripped apart their mothers
to get into the world, and the mothers
called them daughter or son, and the fathers got drunk and felt
they had a say in the universe.
This would happen every day, and for every breath,
there was a building, and for every death,
there was a building or a poem.
For every lame god a kiss in a dark alley, a belief
in moments and luck.
We learned to put history books down gently on the table.
If curious, we asked a Jew about Hitler
or invented our own satisfactory monster.
In difficult times, we came to understand everything is either
personal or a fable."