Building Intervals (revised)

I
In the city buildings sit
so close together,
you can reach straight out a window
and place an open palm on a brick wall.

When it snows a giant hand
slides manila flakes between the buildings
like a file.

In the summer voices jump
from sill to sill carrying burdens
and joys to apartments
that don’t want them.

Luckily the windows are staggered
enough that you can’t look out
and see a kitchen table full of dust.

II
The spaces between buildings,
too narrow to use, are like the spaces
between fingers of the city, holding
histories never written stories
like an American holding chopsticks.

Might as well use a fork
in the city, the dumpster in the alley
is full of rice and the fire escape
only leads to a dead end.

III
There’s not enough space
between the buildings
for the grass, the flowers,
stop talking with a motor mouth,
all your words running together
the BostonChicagoNewYork Marathon,
pretty soon you can’t tell where one city stops
and the other one starts.

The city is lost
like the punctuation in an e.e.
cummings poem,
only honest politicians
understand the heavy breathing
of a wordless language.

IV
There’s not enough space between
the buildings to see the sunset
or to ignore the child crying alone
at night until it rains
and thunders, but in the city
the buildings sit so close together
you don’t have to close your windows,
the drops fall straight down.