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.