Model of a City in Civil War

Men carry a mattress retrieved
from a dumpster past the flooded
foundations of an unfinished
high-rise, an old woman catches
a pigeon in the folds of her dress
the dead smile and rise from swimming
pools or stand at attention
on stamps. The landscape can't believe
it's real--there is no ground
beneath it, like what mirrors do.

Adam Day is the recipient of fellowships from the Poetry Society of America and Kentucky Arts Council, and a PEN Emerging Writers Award. His work has appeared in Boston Review, the Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, AGNI, the Iowa Review, and others.