Now that the clouds have come like cattle

To the cold waters of the city’s river,

All the windows turn their scandalized expression

Toward the tide’s tin dazzle,

And question, with their weak-eyed stare,

The riotous sun.

From several places at a time

Cries of defiance,

As delicate as frost, as sharp as glass,

Rise from the porcelain buildings

And break in the blue sky.

Then, falling swiftly from the air,

The fragments of this fragile indignation

Ring on the echoing streets

No louder than a shower of pins.

But suddenly the bridges’ choiring cables

Jangle gently in the wind

And play like quiet piano-strings.

All down the faces of the buildings

Windows begin to close

Like figures in a long division.

Those whose eyes all night have simulated sleep,

Suddenly stare, from where they lie, like wolves,

Tied in the tangle of the bedding,

And listen for the waking blood

To flood the apprehensive silence of their flesh.

They fear the heart that now lies quenched may quicken,

And start to romp against the rib,

Soft and insistent as a secret bell.

They also fear the light will grow

Into the windows of their hiding places, like a tree

Of tropical flowers

And put them, one by one, to flight.

Then life will have to begin.

Pieces of paper, lying in the streets,

Will start up, in the twisting wind,

And fly like idiot birds before the faces of the crowds.

And in the roaring buildings

Elevator doors will have begun

To clash like sabres.