The City Damned

With Ann naked in bed
Robinson stared out the window
at the barricaded city,

smoke rising from the burning buildings,
the Algonquin’s ashes
up Dorothy Parker’s derrière.

Just then the phone rang
like a ghost of sound
and Robinson pulled the cord from the wall.

On the rooftops he could see
how easy it would be
to fly too close to the sun

but Robinson thought better of it
and sat down on the bed
as Ann breathed air from who knows where.