Langston Hughes, "Bulwark" (1927)
And now you, too, have tumbled down into the dust.
You, too, are no more than a broken lie.
Something
came between us
green and slimy
like sickly laughter
and a bowl was broken
from which
we could not drink thereafter
and we turned around
and threw
the shattered bits
upon the ground
and went our separate ways
into the town
and a clock
somewhere in a tower
boomed out slowly
hour after hour
a great cracked
broken sound.
You were the last bulwark of my dreams,
And now you, too, have tumbled down.
Published in Carolina Magazine, May 1927