What the City Eats

The city eats whatever it can catch:

Rats and cats
Crashed cars, garbage and sewage

The city relishes poisoned pigeons
And baby gulls that fall out
From the bottoms of highways

An old building groans
Like an elk taken by wolves
It teeters and creeks and throwing it’s head back
Crashes into the dust

Old people break like eggs when they fall
The yolk seeps between cracks in the sidewalk
Their shells are trampled by the young

 The city is fat with metal and brick
And bone and blood and glass

Newspaper sticks between
The city’s chain-linked teeth

The rain rinses silt from the street
Parched gutters gulp the dirty water
Into its concrete underbelly

Machines strip the salted streets
As the city sheds its skin

Tar and gravel in the gullet
Aid in its digestion