Photo by Jeff Turner on Flickr. Creative Commons.
She looks at her reflection in the solid glass
of a nearby skyscraper.
She sees her curves and filigree framed
by its straight black borders, doubled by its impermeable sheen.
Born in 1914, she knows her young neighbors,
who sleekly shade the sunlight from her face, silhouette progress.
She's seen the blueprints that trace it out: there is no future
in her stone flanks, her bright crown.
She wonders if it's true that buildings earn
their souls when they survive a century
of bankers and barbarians, lawyers and legislators
who bow when they enter her marble chambers.
Who, when they look to her from below, see her face twice; her image
not trapped so much as giving that steel and glass a purpose.