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This poem expresses what is sometimes felt living in a big city.


Tall People

In my city there are many tall buildings.

In these buildings there are many tall people.

To the side of the tall men are many tall women.

To the side of the tall women are many tall men.

In my city there are very many tall people.

The tall people work in tall offices.

They sit in their tall chairs and work on tall computers.

The tall people go out sometimes to lunch at noon.

The streets next to the offices are thin.

When the tall people want to be entertained,

they go to the wide theater in the center of the city.

Next to the theater in which the tall people go to concerts

there is a thin park with a thin pond,

and in the thin park are very many thin people

who go running down the thin streets, staying thin.

In my city, when the tall people go to concerts,

they are driven by other tall people, in black cars.

In my city, there are many palaces of inconceivable wealth.

In my city, there is a thick hall of justice,

with thick men and thick women in dark blue.

And the thick people cross over the thin streets

to gain hold of the tall or the thin people

as they roam the thin streets or go to the tall concerts.

When the tall people on the thin streets want supple suppers,

they go to the halls of food alongside the thin parks.

If they want more diversion, they see movies

on tall screens, craning their necks to the height.

This is how I feel when I am in my city,

always craning to look up at the tall, tall people.

I come from a different world than they.

I am a short person. When I walk through my city,

I can only crane my neck to look

at the tall people and the tall buildings on the thin streets.

Will I ever be tall, too? Should I want to be?

Or should I rest in what I have done, and stay where the lines

are somewhat more in proportion?