One Viewer’s Response to J. Francis Criss’s Detroit, Waterfront, by Bill Waters

Detroit, Waterfront, by Francis Criss (USA). 1940.

One Viewer’s Response to J. Francis Criss’s Detroit, Waterfront

This is a city of shapes and colours:
in the distance a pink milk carton,
in the sky a peach-coloured “1”.
 
Cigarettes with blue filter tips
are there too, along with a
smoking brown cigar.
 
The streetlamp and freight crane
are children’s toys, and the sky
is a flannel bedsheet.
 
This is a dream-Detroit,
a Detroit of the imagination
in which urban blight has no part
 
and the only trace of the Rust Belt
is in the rusty red-orange box
of chocolates in the foreground.

Bill Waters

This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge.
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Known primarily for his Japanese-style micropoetry, Bill Waters also writes ekphrastic poetry, found verse, book spine poetry, and all manner of short prose. He lives in Pennington, New Jersey, U.S.A., with his wonderful wife and their two amazing cats.