The window seat in the breakfast restaurant
at LaGuardia gives me a clear view of it
there’s a construction crew laboring at 7 o’clock
in the morning on a cloudy Saturday
the cloddish dance of the earth digger machines

the tower cranes poised at impossible angles
a delicate balance as Edward Albee would say
if he were still alive to say it again
but poetry is forever, yes? No? Maybe.
I say construction crew though in truth

it could just as easily be a deconstruction crew
it’s difficult to tell whether anybody’s building up
or tearing down these days and anyway
would it make a difference?
As usual my vote is not required for things

to take their course. You could call me
an interested observer, but no. Don’t call me.
One of the diggers has got hold of a massive piece
of broken concrete and tries to lower it
into a pit of unspeakable filth

nearly tipping over into the hole itself
and then righting its muddy metal body
at the last possible moment
either a reckless narrow miss
or showing off in the manner of all artists everywhere.

Bravo! I say to my coffee cup
as empty as I am, emptied even of emptiness
as restless and ready to be refilled
with mysteries yet to be named
widening like bottomless holes in the earth.