Lemon Grove, Remembered

the June day, resplendent
and gorgeously shining,
fluttered across the kitchen
window like a dance troupe
of angels or magic show
for giggling three year olds,
cotton candy sticking to pink
lips and stubby happy fingers,

and yet for all this beauty
I still see the phone booth
outside the desultory liquor store
in the bleak town of brown
denuded hills and the boy
with the dime and the phone
on the far end which rang and
rang and rang..

the harsh stucco hardened
in an alien furnace
of unrelenting sun
dried and scraped his
eyes as they lost
their boyish shine
day by empty day
on that strange corner
of Broadway
and Massachusetts

where tattooed
mannequins on
motorcycles
smelled like
early death
and neither
angels nor children
sang or licked
with hopeful
tongues
their sweet
fat sticky
fingers.