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The Street
Disclaimer: I hate it.
I'm not sure if the theme is at all clear or remotely well conveyed, but I don't care all too much.
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The Street
An early autumn rain has shined the pavement,
And now the street covets every light that
Bushes up against it,
pressing each sliver of saffron
or stark white iridescence
against its lean, dark body with gnarled hands.
It wants to keep warm for the night.
On the corner of a cobblestone it snags the jaundice glow
That radiates from a one-room pad high above the heads of everyone,
Where a boy who tells girls they’re beautiful just to let them know
Looks upon a man who tells girls they’re ugly just to force apart their legs.
The street holds the shadows of the younger fingers, fat like caterpillars,
And the older ones, thin like the ends of leafless branches.
The boy studies the man with eyes
Like gravel at the bottom of the fishbowl,
speaking to him in a voice like the wind in hollow reeds,
and the man answers with a voice like the wind over sheer cliffs,
as, with eyes like gravel at the foot of a volcano, he stares out at the street.
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