Sister to Bridges

I am sister to bridges, companion to skyscrapers.
I hover over the night city, beating my wings moth-soft
against the steam-laced exhalate of sleeping buildings.
Starlight on frost as delicate as peach fuzz
makes steel and concrete tender.

I am a queen in tattered furs
and garlands of unused lightning.
I swim in the swirls of oil that decorate
the freezing puddles at every corner.
You haven't seen how they catch the light
and make the narrow spectrum of sodium
into a royal rainbow.

You have not seen me if you haven't looked
behind the cold mirrors where the mannequins stand
at unnatural angles. You have not peeled away
the shreds of old paper hanging from the bottom
of the newly painted billboard.
You deepened inward, not away.

I am sister to bridges. I am companion to trains
that wail at night like iron cats. To ships
that cry in the fog, “Lost, lost!” I am of the steel and glass kindred,
bone-cousin to esplanades and waterfronts.
I am light glancing back from windows,
not sky but the reflection of sky. I am the colorless growth
that climbs the ash-heap, spreading razor-edged leaves.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside