"Late Capitalism"

Bert Stern

I got the last box off the shelf but it was empty.

No mouse holes or telltale top torn open

just the sealed box with nothing in it.

At the meat counter, more of the same,

but this time, feathers for chickens

and for swine the slop that fed them.

I thought, depilatory, I thought

old men shrinking in their bones,

April past, then the summer gone.

Meteors stop for lunch. The wheel

grinds to a stop. Here and there,

like detritus, a man hammering,

the inviting space of a sky

with high clouds scudding

north, the bewildered jetstream

strayed from its path, sunshine

pale and lethal. In the street

you are watched by 78 eyes

that love you after their nature.

You are a blind and frightened mouth,

that believes what it is told and eats

what it is given. What else is man

that anyone should be mindful of him?

Give us back our sky

and constellations, our fiery courses,

our bloom in languages that open

and close like a rose.