As I beheld the urbane carcass

of the opera house,

it seemed a giant had picked it up,

shaken it to see what treasure might fall out,

and replaced it on its slab

in the dump of mid-Detroit 

to look for better booty.

Fallen plaster, rotten stage planks,

a crippled chandelier lying in the corner,

petrified with caked-on dust...

a bombed church of hopes.

The air sang:

"How will my heart live?

My voice is full of dust."

That night I dreamt I heard voices

that conjured hand-worked lace

and bespatted tycoons, whalebone corsets

and mustache cups. 

On its side in a pile of rubble an old wreck of a grand piano played,

a beached whale with broken teeth twitching

the unfathomably sad aria of the last night on earth,

our last night on earth.

When I awoke, the faint smell of coal smoke

and honeysuckle lingered

in the gone echo of the high "C".