This street is callous apathy
In a scale of greys and browns.
Its black roof-line suggests
Flat bodies unable to rise.
Even its screams are listlessness
Having an evil dream.
Its air is swarthy rawness
Troubled with ash cans and cellars.
An old woman ambles on
With a black bag that seems part of her back,
And a candidly hawk-like face.
She croons a smothered lullaby
That sifts a flitting roundness
Into her sharply parted face.
Then she surrenders her hand
To the welter of a garbage can.
A hugely wilted woman slinks by
With a cracked stare on her face.
Her eyes are beaten discs
Of the lamplight’s ghastly keenness.
She glides away as though the night
Were a lover flogging her;
Glides into the callous apathy
Of this street, like one who cringes
Happily into her lover’s hallway.