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