Wind from the 45th Floor

This building bites my skin through to the bone.
Some wind it steals from North or South or West.
Some beast it finds to nip at flesh and stone.

Clouds fly past the glass panes of my wall:
some black, some white, some gray crests
of wind-drenched speed, a blue squall

of small birds, debris, what nature brings
downtown, and leaves to swirl the air, unblessed
by curse or prayer, it bites and sings.

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Shaheen Dil's poems have been published in over two dozen journals and anthologies. She has new work forthcoming in Calyx Journal, The Atlanta Review, and Main Street Rag. Her first poetry collection, Acts of Deference, was published in 2016 by Fakel Publishing House in Sofia, Bulgaria. She is a long-term member of the Pittsburgh Poetry Exchange.