3280

Imperious bastion of respectability,
Six levels of arrival to the middle class,
After the Great Depression,

Dumbwaiter deliveries to families encased in steel,
Observing the world through peepholes,
Incinerating waste in basement crypts.

We scratched obscenities on elevators to the roof,
And dared to lean over.
Where babies rocked
And single girls bent sunrays to face.

We roamed the dark recesses of the underground
In awe of furnace furies
And tagged each other in back alleys.


Our lives, time-limited, expendable, Defined brief moments ago, it seems
In this eternal fortress of forever.