hotpants!

How much meat moves

Into the city each night

The decks of its bridges tremble

In the liquefaction of sodium light

And the moon a chemical orange

Semitrailers strain their axles

Shivering as they take the long curve

Over warehouses and lofts

The wilderness of streets below

The mesh of it

With Joe on the front stoop smoking

And Louise on the phone with her mother

Out of the haze of industrial meadows

They arrive, numberless

Hauling tons of dead lamb

Bone and flesh and offal

Miles to the ports and channels

Of the city's shimmering membrane

A giant breathing cell

Exhaling its waste

From the stacks by the river

And feeding through the night