Helicopters sang out in the South Philly skyAnd morning wind blew branches against our windows.It was the hour my dream swarmTwisted me pale on my pillow;When like a bloodshot eye darting and twitching,The last lamp stained the day incarnadine;Where, trapped in my surly bodyI recast the battle between lamp and dayAs my struggle between intention and accident,And like a face wiped dry by breezes,The air was full of thrilling, fleeing things—Anger, Change—I was tired of writing, or you were,You were tired of fucking, or I was.This and that torched boutique sent up smoke.Somebody heaved a planter into another store window.The shopkeeper put the safety back on his sidearm,With stinging eyes dialed his insurance adjuster.Someone danced on a police car.Someone blew up an ATM and his hand off with.Women who forgot to stop bearing childrenMopped their brows and chewed on ice,It was the hour when, sweating and starving,They gave birth to their latest moaning and cursing;Like a sob cut short by foaming blood,A siren, another, tore through the fabric of morning;Buildings snuffled like marine mammalsBedded down in smog sea.Old ones in nursing homes, their minds gone,Hawked up last juddering breaths.They’d been abandonedAs I sometimes wish to abandon you.Someone crept home, broken by stupidity.Shivery Dawn in her green-pink shiftCrawls up the Schuylkill, into the parklands.Angry Philly, rubbing her eyes,Grabs up her tools again, that old worker.