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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heather McHugh
Heather McHugh
A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Heather McHugh has received several awards for her work as a poet, including the MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2009...
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FURTHER READING
Poems about Buildings
Architecture Moraine
by Joanna Fuhrman
Block City
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Broadway
by Mark Doty
Cape Coast Castle
by Yusef Komunyakaa
Notes on a Visit to Le Tuc D'Audoubert
by Clayton Eshleman
Skyscraper
by Matt Rasmussen
Steps
by Grace Schulman
The Starlings
by Jesper Svenbro
Water Picture
by May Swenson
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Glass House

 
by Heather McHugh

Everything obeyed our laws and
we just went on self-improving
till a window gave us pause and
there the outside world was, moving.

Five apartment blocks swept by,
the trees and ironwork and headstones
of the next town's cemetery.
Auto lots. Golf courses. Rest homes.
Blue-green fields and perishable vistas
wars had underscored in red
were sweeping past,
with cloudscapes, just

as if the living room were dead.
Which way to look? Nonnegative?
Nonplussed? (Unkilled? Unkissed?)
Look out, you said; the sight's on us:

If we don't move, we can't be missed.









From Upgraded to Serious by Heather McHugh. Copyright © 2012 by Heather McHugh. Reprinted with permission of Copper Canyon Press. All rights reserved.
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