Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The Street

They led me into the street, the others.
The little one gnashing her teeth,
eyes flickering under the sudden sun;
the suave guard with his collection of keys
sounding when one struck the others
like a call to prayer or to silence;
the tall, burly fighter, no one’s brother
now that he no longer climbed through the ropes,
posturing now only for sycophants;
San Francisco poeta with brave words
that could find no test equal to her charge;
and I could no more have written this then
than go to sleep when I was not walking,
find the hour of night I could call my own,
the hour of seeing my Irish lover
cavorting with her other secret men.
The street, how I loved to roam its borders
as though I were back in the fields again
listening hard, seeing through, tasting the air,
smelling the rainwater drenching my skin.

(15-16 April 2014)

copyright 2014 by Floyce Alexander

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