David Francis

Our Street

Down the drowsy drizzly street
by the winter scarecrow tree
a line of parked cars,
the lousy models

there is a lot
of brown brambles
and lint-white trash
where the tinker lives

before
the sidewalk slopes
crookeding the foundations
of the narrow houses

in the little room
between the doors
I hide
then

up the street
I wander
where the blare, scrape
and scare of morning

mouthes:
the silent individuals
tread by
toward the subway

down, again,
the others, mostly women
eating ham and chatting
march toward the sweatshop

at the end of the street
wan black birds
and gulls from the canal
fly over the brick monstrosity.

David Francis © 2008