CITY OF LOCKS
(from Angel Fire)
there
in the bright ignorant air
the streets are crudely named:
Canal Street
Lock Street
Water Street
Plank Road
'the world's largest single span bridge'
is jumbled today with shoppers' cars
along this mile of the Erie Barge Canal
there are juttings of rock long blasted out
at Lockport, New York, at the famous locks
there are rusted railings painted over
the confused apparatus of workmen
always repairing the water's damage
there is the sullen soapy spouting of water
through a five-foot pipe
evilly, an odor rises from the bubbling fall
of one artificial level to another
old municipal buildings at the canal's edge
sink down to its silent strata
as if to a past before history
water flows through us today, warmly
through the citizens of Lockport, New York
and through us
in a small foaming series of falls
no fish glide farelessly beneath the stagnant
wash above the locks
the shadows of birds sink without sound
no dead citizens float gazing downward here
or cavort in the man-made falls
there is no orchard of seaweed and moss to refine
the canal's sludge to lace
eye to eye with the broken windows of warehouses
across the canal
we wait
wait for something to become clear—
but nothing happens
in these meager cities of our childhoods
nothing is declared
printed by permission of Joyce Carol Oates
|
|
Photographs by Greg Johnson
|
![[JCO Home]](images/homebutton.jpeg)
![[Table of Contents]](images/contentsbutton.jpeg)
