Ambivalence: A New City

I could make the new city
with my fingers,
smooth out glass,
granite, rub cloth flags
like clothes tags. I could
make it with my mouth,
lick down grit with tongue,
inhale-exhale exhausts.
I kiss out gargoyles; I breathe out
all the people
and they imagine scenes
from their childhood -- making small
roads and block houses in the dirt
with sticks. Their memories
echo the layout
of this new town. I could make
it with my feet, as if I were
a mortal, in sandals, pacing out
textures of concrete, sand,
tar. Make unblinking windows
that lay open
to the light like broken corneas.
The city resides in
my people and I fondle their thoughts
with my hands. This is their clay.
I take this clay and it's
changed by them.
I take a joy and make
it a river. I take a love
and create a park, fed and groomed
daily like a child. I take a bitterness
and make it pollution. I mix in some more sun
and a cloud passes -- there it is, what
I was missing: ambivalence.

Copyright Louise Robertson