Two Women on a Street

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.