It mentions William James listening for the breathing of statues and the "angry wrenlike vigilance" of an object which "sticks like a fishbone/in the city's throat.
It mentions William James listening for the breathing of statues and the "angry wrenlike vigilance" of an object which "sticks like a fishbone/in the city's throat." Boylston Street has no such statues from the last war, only "a commercial photograph" showing "Hiroshima boiling." The speaker turns to the television and watches "the drained faces of Negro school children," concluding that "a savage servility/slides by on grease." Both the first and last stanzas mention the destruction of the South Boston Aquarium, which stood near "St. Gaudens' shaking Civil War relief." For ten points, name this Robert Lowell poem which examines modern Boston and Robert Gould Shaw's regiment in the Civil War.
It mentions William James listening for the breathing of statues and the "angry wrenlike vigilance" of an object which "sticks like a fishbone/in the city's throat.
“For the Union Dead”