Frederick Pollack
But Your Chains
Someone in passing writes that Marxism
isn’t a view of life, so Marxists
attach themselves covertly to various
metaphysics . . . I consider this,
under the weather. Outside,
the remaining leaves, the pitted driveway
feel sorry for me and each other but can’t
do anything. My wife has had to do
my household chores. Cats sleep so much
because their plans are hard and they’ve far to go
before they inherit. On visible trees,
no birds at all—perhaps they’re protesting
the deaths of birds. We gauge the foreign
detective shows we watch each night
by the depressiveness
of the detective. These emotions
go out into space . . . perhaps they come from space.
Meanwhile the crane two blocks away turns, bearing
rebar and beams from one side to the other
of the site for the new senior living center
we can’t afford.