Gowanus Sonnet
Post-Carroll Street, when you are Brooklyn-bound
On what my father called the IND,
The F emerges from beneath the ground,
And fills with light (by day) and you can see.
And what you see, if you look to the left:
Scratchiti; the reflection of your face;
A moonscape, blocks wide, edifice-bereft,
Within the tracks’ Erector Set embrace.
Perusal at Hoyt’s terminus reveals
Cement mixers, rotating, marked FB,
A Sheeler painting, all blue sky and steel:
Ferrara Brothers’ concrete factory —
The swan song of Kings County’s smokestack past,
As out of reach as Whole Foods’ lot is vast.
