Sequins

If truth is beauty,
Then our apartment (2-D)

Isn't true at all, with its ugly
View; you can't even see

In fact what little bit of truth
Might lie outside—our uncouth

Windows smeared with grime:
It ought to be a crime

To block the city skies,
To cover up our eyes

With soot on 94th and Park,
Leaving us in urban dark

At the mercy of the window cleaner
(The glass is always greener

When a window has a goal,
The way eyes reflect the soul);

But when nature takes away
Such a beautiful display

Of jammed-up vans and taxis,
To cover up his tracks, he

Offers certain compensations:
Dazzling miniature suns

Reflect the light in rainbows
Through prisms in the windows'

Dirt, the entire city fed
Through cracks of yellow, blue, and red,

Converting all our acid slag
To a sort of truth in drag—

A little point of interest
In our windows' pointless mist:

Filthy windows, like some girls,
Inherit strings of cultured pearls,

Perfecting plainer faces with
The glossy Harry Winston myth,

Forging diamonds out of dew,
Making lying windows true.

February 8th, 1990