Urban Renewal
Summer’s lease expired six weeks ago,
so night falls like a cartoon piano
from some third-floor balcony
while we’re stuck on the street going,
“why’s it so damn dark all of the—?”
Six weeks ago, wasn’t this a parking lot?
Weren’t shopping carts overturned where
that Lexus slinks into concealed garage?
Didn’t lonesome condoms congeal where
marble fountains spurt on the breeze?
Couples smooch on wrought benches
lining street after street of luxe condos
stacked three high and packed tight
behind brick facades, faux-antique,
every quarter-paned window still taped.
Even though a quarter-century gapes
between you and me like a bulldozed lot,
I feel fearless even under the threat
of steep, black grand-piano nightfall.
Instead of smash and squelch and silence
I hear the first chords of a prelude,
simple and sure, from an open window.
In warm fall breeze, on fresh-poured curb,
we mark our first six weeks with a kiss
freshly-planted as these autumn trees.
Impossible Archetype, March 2020
