The Factory

Every few months still a dream

tries to set things right between us—

not how it ended, but the loss of the feeling

you had some inestimable inner treasure

you can now again bring me, despite the months

your talk seemed flat to me, your soul an absence,

and I only your most ingenious, relentless critic—

I think of the light-metal factory

you loved so, when it floated

out of the cold November fog

north from San Jose,

with a hundred miniature-minaret

smokestacks, so new and flimsy

I couldn’t imagine anyone loving it, or hating…