The Extolling of an Egoist, October 1939

I belonged in a skyscraper,
nothing more because that would have put me too close to God,
and even I knew I did not belong there,
but nothing less because anything less would have been beneath me,
in all senses of the phrase,

Mr. Roarke said he would have built me one if I had asked,
this was during our nightly conversations,
nights when I believed I, not Dominique, was the cat's meow

Mr. Hearst said he saw me in a periwinkle business suit,
a pencil skirt,
and sheer light blue panty hose,
sitting behind a desk on the 33rd floor,
I did not know what this meant, but these seemed like kind words from the old man

There were misconceptions about these columns of ours,
these pillars of the metropolis,

they said the more we made of them,
the more we removed ourselves from the masses,

and maybe they were right,
and maybe they were jealous,

or maybe they were afraid of what heights can do to the mind,
to the ego,

after all,
you can't have windows that high without looking down on the rest of them,

Those many minutes on the morning climb,
in and out of the lift,
I got very good at pretending to care about the life around me,

after all,
it was I who asked for the building's beautiful facade,

but all I really knew was how to put my head in the clouds,
back where it belonged,
in this magnificent charade