Joe sells hot dogs on State Street, but his attention lives somewhere else. Frank Marshall Davis sketches him in a few quick strokes: a weathered brown face, eyes that gaze without really seeing, and a fifty-year-old body already carrying a seventy-year-old voice. As his hands spread mustard, he tells a small, heavy story—back home he “didn’t know no trouble,” then the war came, he lost two sons, his wife died, and he moved North. Now the present is only a job; his mind drifts through “a sea of yesterdays.” The poem doesn’t preach or pity him loudly. It simply watches him work and remember. The mood is quiet, sad, and respectful, like sitting near a man whose real conversation is with the past.
South State Street Profile — Summary
A great oak brown face, a strange face with inch and a half eyes placed three inches above two mustache guarded lips has Joe, a seller of hotdogs on State Street A seventy year old voice has this man of fifty . . . his eyes seldom see what they gaze upon . . . he appreciates words unspoken better—much better—than those one says Joe swims in a sea of yesterdays . . . memories of better times beat against his mind like a lash . . . his lips tell tales while his hands make a living "Way back down home" he says while brown hands paint red frankfurters a thick yellow with French's mustard "I used to didn't know no trouble . . . but the Wah came and I lost two sons and my wife died and I came up No'th . . ." He sells another and still he sees dreamed-of things with his eyes while his hands make a living . . .