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We're aware in every nerve end of our tenement's
hand-mortared Jersey brick, the plumbing's
dripping dew-points, the electric running Direct,
and on each landing four hall-johns fitted
to the specifics and minima of the 1879
Tenement Housing Act. We lived in its clauses
and parentheses, that drew up steep stairways
and filled the brown airwells with eyebrowed
windows. Unwhistling, the midwinter radiator
lists in its pool of rust. A lightcord winds
through its light chain; from a plasterless ceiling-slat
topples a roach, with its shadow. Downstairs, our Sicilian widow
beats the cold ribs with a long-handled skillet,
and faucets drum in twenty old-law flats.
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