South City

Even the pines are industrial-park green.
Blue is the tarp, blue the crane,
blue the siding of Building 6—
its smoke, the incinerated animals
of our biotech firm, commingles
with low clouds. (This city, like water,
waits for the end of industry.)
Now a jet, so quiet, jets past my cool
office window, past tall ships in the bay,
their masts like matchsticks—
but burned, already burned.
And the pier, like a lean prehistoric monster,
has walked, headfirst, into the sea.

Copyright © 2009 Randall Mann All rights reserved
from Breakfast with Thom Gunn
The University of Chicago Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission