Emanuel Carnevali

From “The Day of Summer”

OVER our shoulders

Your noisy anger,

O Elevated!

I walk in a fog of sleep,

Not fearing to be awakened any more.

Something queer to drink,

Or going somewhere else,

Another girl—

These are the last visions of salvation.

The dust has blinded

The trees in the park.

The gutters are loose mouths of the drunken Manhattan.

Now at last give them up, your hungry and greasy

And greedy romances.

And you snobs, damn fools, remember you are sweating too.

Now at last be all appeased

In ugliness,

Wallow in the heat,

O sacred soul of the crowd.

No one dies, don’t be

Afraid.

Some life is left.

See the will-o’-the-wisps of lewdness

Burning in all the eyes.

We are alive yet.

See me scuttle on—

Satisfied enough,

Finding with my almost eager eyes

Not-yet-known breasts and strange thighs

In your sacred crowds, O Manhattan!