V

As I sit in my little fifth-floor room — Bare, Save for bed and chair, And coppery stains

Left by seeping rains On the low ceiling And green plaster walls, Where when night falls

Golden lady-bugs Come out of their holes, And roaches, sepia-brown, consort... I hear bells pealing

Out of the gray church at Rutgers street, Holding its high-flung cross above the Ghetto, And, one floor down across the court, The parrot screaming:

Vorwärts... Vorwärts... The parrot frowsy-white, Everlastingly swinging On its iron bar.

A little old woman, With a wig of smooth black hair Gummed about her shrunken brows, Comes sometimes on the fire escape.

An old stooped mother, The left shoulder low With that uneven droopiness that women know Who have suckled many young...

Yet I have seen no other than the parrot there. I watch her mornings as she shakes her rugs Feebly, with futile reach And fingers without clutch.

Her thews are slack And curved the ruined back And flesh empurpled like old meat, Yet each conspires

To feed those guttering fires With which her eyes are quick. On Friday nights Her candles signal

Infinite fine rays To other windows, Coupling other lights, Linking the tenements

Like an endless prayer. She seems less lonely than the bird That day by day about the dismal house Screams out his frenzied word...

That night by night — If a dog yelps Or a cat yawls Or a sick child whines,

Or a door screaks on its hinges, Or a man and woman fight — Sends his cry above the huddled roofs: Vorwärts... Vorwärts...