"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.
