Tower of Hysteria

The broom handles are sinking deeper,

gliding through a wobbly nothing.

The tower is sinking and the bedrock was never there.

Six inches of tilt is enough to cut off sewage,

more than enough

to disrupt a sensitive array of high speed

cables responsible for dropping elevator cars.

The tower is leaning and

this never happens,

they say as if we have not been building

with s**t baked by sunrays

for longer than we have been building

castles in the moors.

 

A woman on the top floor got sick

when she was told to leave

through the nearest stairwell.

Her heart gave out just before the point of no return.

She was pulled up to the roof

by a large man in his twenties

to be airlifted.

 

Because the tilt was so great

the helicopter could not land safely.

a line came down, slapping

flaccid in the wind.

It pulled her away

over a city slowly

surrendering to taillights.

 

They drifted there awhile

shy of the hospital,

her donor card still

pressed against her thigh

as she lay prone

in the flying abattoir.

Her kidneys were taken from her

and chilled.

Her spinal fluid was drained.

Her skull was cleaned and fitted with metal mounting brackets.

Her feet were pickled.

Her womb was removed in its entirety,

feeding one hysteria

down grills in the shadow

of the leaning tower.