By now the hospital has unfolded
to the heavy planet of the wrecking ball
and I’m awful
driven to enter a broken door
pioneer mad abandoned hallways
curtains torn halfway off their institutions
my father was born in one of these rooms
and eighty years later
lives a block away
rusted file cabinets give me library
anthologies of modern literature
deeper files I dare open to cadaver
weathered on the roof I yell up god
watch the lost eagle follow the river west
I see what they are not why
against bright cloud they’re headless
O for that
head and body gone off on their own
the chimney’s great owl is only a wing
and coos when I take
flashlight up nightmare’s stairway
just before I graduate and leave
the hospital is razed and I watch brick tumble
what has already become dust in me
stands shy on the stair