LUNCH-TIME ALONG BROADWAY
Twelve-thirty bells from a thousand clocks, the typewriter tacks and stops,
Gorged elevators slam and fall through the floors like waterdrops,
From offices hung like sea-gulls’ nests on a cliff the whirlwinds beat,
The octopus-crowd comes rolling out, his tentacles crawl for meat.
He snuffles his way by restaurants where lily-voiced women feast,
He pokes his muzzle through white-tiled caves, and gulps like a hungry beast,
He roots into subterranean holes, he sweeps hell’s tables bare,
His suckers settle and fix and drink like wasps on a bursting pear.
The wildcat quarrel of traffic soothes to a smooth rolling of tires