Industrial Shadow

This shadow of infernal
machinery plastered against
brownish yellow brickwork
invokes the human silhouettes
burnt into sidewalks and walls
at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

When I crept behind this building
to exfoliate my bladder
I didn’t expect to encounter
this hulking dark impinging
on an otherwise brilliant day.
This critique of my careless habits

intends to censure or censor
my projected moment of ease.
I guess I’d better withdraw
and find a friendly men’s room
somewhere between Harvard Square
and the surface of the moon.

Industrial Shadow is a new poem by William Doreski inspired by a photograph by Rodger Kingston. They are the authors of Train to Providence, a book of ekphrastic poetry and photography, available now wherever books are sold.