Ruined Interior Poem by Suzanne Buffam

In the beginning was the world.
Then the new world.
Then the new world order

which resembles the old one
doesn't it? Its crumbling
aqueducts. Its trinkets and shingles.

Its pathways smothered in fog.
If all we've done is blink a bit
and touch things,

notice how dust describes
a tin can by not falling
where it sits, or how a red sleeve

glimpsed through curtains
mimics the tip of a whispering
tongue, was the whole day a waste

or can worth be conferred
on a less than epic urge? Bow-wow
says the doggie on page two.

Ahoy says the sailor.
Arise says the tired queen,
and face the highway,

the donut shops, and the boardwalk.
It rained today, and you could see perfect
inversions of streetlights

suspended in the drops on the window.
You could see the skyline
trying to hold up the sky.

Don't tell me there's another,
better place. Don't tell me
there's a sea

above our dreaming sea
and through the windows of heaven
the rains come down.