This concrete cube
serves as a cold anchor
to future’s coming frost,
working cheaper than a ticket
to hockey game, circus or
Jehovah’s Witness convention,
prone in the crowd
to the patrons’ weary gaze,
a nail waiting for a hammer.

The boss orders me outside
like a bad dog in the yard;
the wind’s bitter fingers
cut through winter coat
faster than a bursting secret.
I shiver for bitter dollars
in a shriveling search
for balanced books.

I leap into uncertainty’s abyss
where no wind blows,
no snow piles higher than the exit,
no boss on new boss power trips;
as the darkness of my shrinking city
unfolds with the river’s every ripple,
I find more hope in the rubble
of tomorrow than today’s
crumbling concrete block.