Cities have Fallen

At some hopeless hour the mirrors gave up.

The hallway filled with the mineral smell of rain

beginning three streets over.

A blue garment on the radiator spread like a bruise

that you pushed on.

Meanwhile language, poor animal,

dragged itself in circles - wet paws over tile,

slipping clumsily.

I mentioned birds once,

how they turn collectively without touching.

This was taken incorrectly.

Later, a sequence of small disappearances:

the cup rinsed, the slam of a door thinning into silence,

elevator cables threading darkness through the building.

In the phone’s pale orchard entire paragraphs fell overnight.

Cities too have vanished this way -

removed from maps after floodwater and fire.

At least ours was scarcely built.

Though it saddened me still to see the table:

two fingerprints in salt, abandoned rings,

a charging wire curled like something sleeping through winter.

In the face of such fragility,

you begin to understand why archaeologists work with brushes.