Gene McCormick- A Poem

Dancing In The Dark

 

Working the mean streets through

the big town’s inner-city…

Heavy sky all day, the sun stays down,

there is no moon.

Running the length of the city block

lit only by an occasional streetlight,

a chain link wall creates a meaningless divide

between street people and tenement dwellers.

A large dog barks on the tenement side

standing near a trash bin and burned-out car.

Window shades are pulled to the sill;

graffiti marks walls, alley, the dumpster.

Along the other side of the fence,

the sidewalk is slathered with black ice

and snow slush covering broken bottle glass.

Concave pockets in the fence mark where the

hapless are slammed against chain links, mugged.

A fire hydrant tilts at a twenty degree angle.

 

No sun, no moon, no matter.

Sometimes footsteps can be heard, sometimes not.