Cloud white slather
above brown brick block;
a telephone talker,
a chick
running into bank
for last minute withdrawal,
businessman with attaché
wine-salesman or maybe heroin-seller,
hillside houses scattered
like dice among
bare trees, brush, brown-green;
office workers going home
to grub
or to Irish pub on noir-ish side street
by jewelers' sparkling windows
on corner...
Chubby high school girl
wearing green Celtics' jersey, walks past;
I hear screams of punks on Brooklyn Street
(where shooting was last week)
church steeple an up thrust dagger into
cloud slather
purr of cars from Prospect Street;
my back to pine tree
my prospects few
(could be worse)
pine needles at my feet
twigs, cones, chewing gum
wrapper, butt...
I should do something to get out
of here,
but what?
___
Wayne Burke's work has appeared in FORGE, miller's pond, and Northeast Corridor. He was poet-of-the-month in Bareback, 7-13.
