A City and a Tower
My name was Araceli in the evening
when we danced, darkness against the dark,
and he joked about erecting
spiraled towers from the dirt.
“We will be grass in the morning,” he said,
“but now we are weeds.”
And I whispered, “Come on, boy, dance.”
That night he calls me Eden,
though I see him look like wolves;
his wayward leaning is slick
and slides me down.
And I rise
and rise
in my bosom
‘til I am full of that “per sempre!”
the wild girls carry in their laugh,
when the wineglasses are drained
and the sun is the moon,
and I go laughing all evening long.
And that night he calls me Heathen,
my love.
In my sweat
he tells me how weeds
overgrow the grass.
And jokes that he has built
spiraled towers in the dirt
and fastens his belt
and laughs.
About this poem
I wrote this poem with the intention of including it in a book of poetry that I never completed. The poem, and the book, focus on the economic conditions coming into view in my home city. At the time, the city operated under threat of gentrification at the time. It is now in the middle of that process, to the chagrin of some and the delight of others.
Written on April 13, 2009
Submitted by kemaeljo on September 29, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 49 sec read
- 49 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXABXCXDXXXX X XXXXXDXXCXXBXX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 849 |
Words | 164 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 1, 14 |
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"A City and a Tower" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 Oct. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/138962/a-city-and-a-tower>.
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