Metal Heart

your phone rang and you answered it.
you spoke for a long time
and did not see
the shadowy shards of concrete,
disjuncted boxcars,
the gnarled silhouettes of cranes,
like stooped
Camels.

And behind:

the black ranks of mountains, dark scaffold of nightmare.
the dark throat of fog
advancing

across
the pearly bay
and my oily heart,
singing the
old world’s
iron hymn.