CitySummer

I love the way a city in summer
swaggers and swelters,
its visitors and citizens
sway hips of all sizes
mop dripping sweat from thin
and thick skin in the sizzle of heat

its potholes subways brown/
stones cinemas and lunch carts
offer such sweetness
such shelter from crowds
in their mad dash and welter

I love how the streets straight
and narrow or broadly curving
with their drivers bikers and walkers
bring cool songs of surprise
soothe the burn of red
tired eyes
time after time

I recall the joy of riding the number '6'
bus in July, that Jeffrey Express,
half asleep and cooking
towards downtown’s
magical towers

as we of every color and shape
stand crammed so close that
showered scrubbed bodies
can’t but mingle and rub,
gradually start our slow
difficult wake up

and feel the young black driver
suddenly belt out a love ballad
from vibrating lips
crazy loud behind a steering wheel
big as a ship as he sits and steers us
happy glad from his funky brown
leather seat

(real beauty IS so strong so sweet)

that even work early Monday
stuck within an eleventh floor
rectangular office on Jackson
is now almost mythic in scope,
complete, this day
the perfect
temperature
of hope.