11 PM Elegy

And the buildings are breathing like beasts
And time is imprisoned in aspic
And the streetlights stare down in shame
And the ever-beating tide of the city is beginning to ebb.

And the car carapaces are funhouse mirrors
And the stumbling students huddle like penguins on the pavement
And the jacketed singletons stalk the sidewalk like phantoms
And life is uncertain of itself on the slumbering streets.

And yet the moonlight renders saintly the passing faces
And there is kindness in the hushed whispers which swirl about our heads
And the rebar heart buried under the streets is beating faster
And there is beauty in the inchoate darkness of this great heaving organism.