Living Public ('85-'94)

Irater retirees flipping through the Telegram
give up and march demonstrably to gardens,
chimeras faintly sensed through these untested aisles.

Rather than meadows, old marble-inlaid tables
broad enough to spread obituary and want ad
greet them in the library of the past tense,

the reading room accessible by polished steps
helixing to the marble handrail, the stairwell bright
from a bulb dangling from the frayed cord like a noose --

and pigeons that in swishes battle for sill-space,
and marble walls cracked behind the urinals,
and walking coughs, fatigued or emphysemic.

Soon I search for the center the pensioners see,
tabletop with leonine oak legs and fluted paws.
But through the sanitized cages of new shelves

of course I cannot find it, the ambiance bought.
Whatever happened to the tawdriness I was used to,
smelling of outpatients' sweaters, oversized, briny,

their trouser-wales reeking of harbor,
a salt-encrusted taste redeeming the taint of sewerage?
Security must have ushered them to the beyond.

What more can be said of space, except it shrinks,
more precious to repurchase by the clock?