Sonnet #264

Even as I know the dreams we're sold are broken,
I dream the dreams I'm taught. The big house, the big,
big kitchen, with the big island and the big, big, big
yard far avenues beyond the reach of subway tokens

My dreams of what it means to be a man break
The world that will be here when I am dead
Our children will stand in ruined suburbs, having spread
our ashes in the fall; whisper curses to our love, how we take

More than we give to the ground, how we
Break more than we heal, how they must
come after us and mine the tombs of cities, how we
hoarded all our failed ease in buried heaps, how they must
look into the sky we burnt for our dreams, how we
Make money and call it love, how they must