Dawn

The buildings, haggard in the moonlight, pocked
As her face, still dark, shudder as a cool air
Floods the horizon; like a galleon
Loosed from her mooring, dawn glides
Through an ocean of still air, pushing out waves
And furrowing the sky. The first tide
Is a flood-light of crimson splendour
Unhinging the grey specters
That leaves them floating like buoys
In its mobile swathes; the sterile
Dialogue of the evening, pierced
By the sullen, reluctant light of an office
Cracking like a tired eye, gives way
To morning's soliloquy, a collation
Of loosely timed bird-calls, mixed with the groans
Of radiant cars, and bound
By the strings of waking thought.