Urban Renewal

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The sun slides down behind brick dust, 
today’s angle of life. Everything

melts, even when backbones 
are I-beams braced for impact.

Sequential sledgehammers fall, stone 
shaped into dry air

white soundsystem of loose metal 
under every footstep. Wrecking crews,

men unable to catch sparrows without breaking 
wings into splinters. Blues-horn

mercy. Bloodlines. Nothing 
but the white odor of absence.

The big iron ball 
swings, keeping time

to pigeons cooing in eaves 
as black feathers

float on to blueprint 
parking lots.

© Yusef Komunyakaa