Urban Shots

URBAN RENEWAL 

                    ~BY YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA

The sun slides down behind brick dust,   

today’s angle of life. Everything

melts, even when backbones   

are I-beams braced for impact.

Sequential sledgehammers fall, stone   

shaped into dry air

white soundsystem of loose metal   

under every footstep. 

Wrecking crews,

men unable to catch sparrows without breaking   

wings into splinters. Blues-horn

mercy. Bloodlines. Nothing   

but the white odor of absence.

The big iron ball   

swings, keeping time

to pigeons cooing in eaves   

as black feathers

float on to blueprint   

parking lots.