cheech

Stray dogs are baying at the edge of the roof.
For every vacant lot there is a blue streetlight.

In the razor wind two men in steel helmets
are welding the iron steps of the fire escape.

The snow swirls through the sparks of their torches.
Then it swallows the men.

Baring icy teeth, the dogs race down the fire escape,
single file for six stories, and beyond.

Through the buckled pavement, along a freezing
zigzag to the underworld, where they retrieve

the bones of the dead who one occupied this tenement:
a burned-out building at the city limits

to which the welders were sent to repair
a fire escape no one but the dogs will use,

piling a pyramid of bones on the sagging
roof until it gives way.