The Children Look into the Horizon

Behind the fencing,
the children of the projects
fourteen floors over Halsted St.
watch the lines of sunset
playing within the colors
coming from the factories—
large plumes of chemicals,
reactions, interactions,
a rainbow of precipitation—
coke oven gas, naphthalene,
ammonium compounds,
crude light oil, sulfur,
carbon dioxide, particulates,
nitrogen oxides, lead,
chlorofluorocarbons,
unburned hydrocarbons--
until the ozone rusts
and skin and breath glow.