The Cement City

The Cement City

The cement city calls out to me from its walls of heat.
I search for something, and never easily finding answers,
I sit on steps and fling sweat from my neck into the street.

These carport cracks, they creep, towards my feet as the sun beats
And breaks this concrete shell into its seperate pieces. The same sun
Beats on my back,
And I feel the same cracking
In patterns of mosaic lightning-
Mirroring storms on the pavements many faces.
My frayed eyes fix
On these fracture gaps,
Spaces, between jig jag formations-
Is this broken stone?
Or my skull-
Re-intact after being broken?

My hands, I find
Just as lined in creases; at just thirty, I'm torn in places
And my insides break,
For the same reasons,
And by the same principals as do minerals-
Expansion. Contraction. Depletion.
The slab reacts in predictable fashion, strapped tight in its straight jacket of elements,
And in forced resettlement, it faults, when the Earth shifts,
And bone grey plains fall off
At edges
Into chasms
Where ants walk hidden
In fissures of black.