Manhattan Dawn (1945) by Donald Justice

Manhattan Dawn (1945)

There is a smoke of memory

That curls about these chimneys

And then uncurls; that lifts,

Diaphanous, from sleep

To lead us down some alleyway

Still vaguely riverward;

And so at length disperses

Into the wisps and tatters

That garland fire escapes.

—And we have found ourselves again

Watching, beside a misty platform,

The first trucks idling to unload

(New England's frost still

Unstippling down their sides).

                                                Or turned

To catch blue truant eyes upon us

Through steam that rose up suddenly from a grate . . .

                                                Grinning—

And the grin slid off across the storefronts.

Dawn always seemed to overtake us, though,

Down Hudson somewhere, or Horatio.

—And we have seen it bend

The long stripes of the awnings down

Toward gutters where discarded flowers

Lay washing in the night's small rain—

Hints, glimmerings of a world

Not ours.

              And office towers

Coast among lost stars.