Madison and 43rd at one,
I’ve left a window’s flock of owls
to peer at my empty desk.
Bowls of bloody plumes and wood whites
lead me past two gargoyles
with brooch bellies and toothless grins,
boasting of equitable trust
in spite of their u’s carved as v’s.
I’m lured under acorn lamps hanging from grape stems,
perhaps to feed the steel brachiosaurus’ with
pendants in their mouths.
They appear to be asleep at this time of day
or wary
of Mercury, Hercules and Minerva
loitering above the tourists.
Nirosta eagles,
terraced crown guards,
perch above both,
but I’ve safely made it past.
In spite of the hard cuffed men who
dodge the bearded man on the floor,
with frayed jeans, a baseball cap, and converses –
hobo or hipster?
– Rachel R. Vasquez, September 2017
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
A poem I wrote during lunch break when I worked near Grand Central and the Chrysler building. Frank O’Hara has always been an inspiration of mine. I have his “Lunch Poems” book.
Rachel's Floetry 