almost no one knows this

"American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash..." --John Steinbeck

"...perhaps when all is said and done the plastic bag will stand as the most sweeping and poignant icon of human achievement."

     "Sonnets to Chango: IX."

Spillway glimpse of the legendary sylph
as rain gathers in clumps athwart the ivy
& this vast ruin, deliquescent emblem,
shimmers like firelight. Now reflection somber
eludes the earnest stitchery of the poem
though it go down into vats of pickled cabbage,
a skimmington for ice wastes to imagine.
Far, far from these trails. Amphibian sculpture...
one day the cracked cup will break. Thekk mulcts
these sheltering congeries, forever fractious,
gesso on linen, long-verboten aspirin,
the blackened snout of the dodgy-scamper aardwolf.
We rebuild. Fireflies weave. It's difficult
not to see these halcyon skies as swarthy.