Isolation

A buzzing isolation
embraces a vainly hopeful town,
built of hasty strokes of wood,
and a callused one-way street.
Beggars grow rich
as with bleeding fingers
they nuzzle splinters of silver
left by some fool
dizzy in pursuit of gold.

A buzzing isolation
surrounds workers as they toil,
web of motion,
silver and sleek,
uniform strings of pallid rhythm
upon the kneaded, crushed and broken fields,
torching nighttime,
for the blinding hours of day
do not suffice.

A throbbing isolation
feathers the only dove,
silently incandescent
in this town of hoarse and speckled pigeons
plummeting forward
in packs of whitewashed symmetry.
The dove veers off,
no longer isolated though she alone carves tunnels of invisibility
in skies of dawn,
frivolous colors retreating hue by hue
which land upon slowly penned rooftops and time-carved roads,
humble dirt and modest ruts,
unsteady sound of unsure wheels,
polished by despair bitten hands
toiling for the future
one must journey to glimpse,
for the dusty sunset,
or the bellowing moon
that only shines when the soul is content.

But the dove, as always, returns.

In buzzing isolation
the mortals of a town
rip weathered horizons
with metallic silhouettes,
the brand of perfection
and the scar of unrest.

Angela Yang ’18

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