Biology Lesson at the Ansonia

What one understands about the grand Ansonia,
that opulently belle époque stone pile of
an apartment house proclaiming the civility
of New York City’s upper west side Broadway
neighborhood – the side that sides with
academics and musicians and the toniest
of homeless schizophrenics (observation, this;
not diatribe) – is, much before all else, that

it is large; and that despite its putti-covered
cornucopia-rid shelves and tiers and balustrades,
it has to do what every creature – never mind
how gorgeously elaborate a public face
it may possess – must do: evacuate its waste,
eject excess: take an unimpeded dump.
Now, we’re not talking politesse here: this huge
ogress of an edifice, all sagging cheeks and jowls,

has untold tons to pass through her inevitably
massive grinding bowels. A Bunyanesque
trash truck takes root each Thursday morning
to collect with giant double-dumpster bins
let down and lifted up with heavy metal arms,
as if to thudding beats of constipated Brahms:
a slow and complicated choreography of
dark blue steel containers groaning under

the innumerable sacks of garbage that this lady
must discard each week – well, let’s just say
you’d better take another route to get through
to the Hudson River if you want to take a leak –
but if you’re there, do take a peek. Seldom are
we bidden so dramatically to pause and to reflect
on the impossibility of being circumspect about
biology. To or fro, even grand ladies gotta go.

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