L.A.

Lo, at its center one can find oneself/ atop a paved and windy hill, with weeds/ taller than men on one side and on the other/ a freeway thundering a canyon’s depth below./ New buildings in all mirror-styles of blankness/ are being assembled by darkish people while/ the old-time business blocks that Harold Lloyd/ teetered upon crouch low, in shade, turned slum.

The lone pedestrian stares, scooped at by space./ The palms are isolate, like psychopaths./ Conquistadorial fevers reminisce/ in the adobe band of smog across the sky,/ its bell of blue a promise that lured too many/ to this waste of angels, of ever-widening gaps.

by John Updike