Fireflies

Lining the sidewalk

Snapping

My picture

As I walk by

The neighbors

Must wonder

Why

I turn

And pose

Prayer

Is me

Needing

To do something

About something

I can do

Nothing about

And it is you

Needing me

To know

That

Mayne Street

Did they know that

When they spelled it this way

The confusion it would cause

For someone looking for

Main

Or did they secretly smile

Wink

Tip their top hats

In a furtive salute

To their cleverness

A dormant joke

In an era of newsprint

And telegraph

Reawakened with

The telephone

And television

Fading now with

Text re-emerging

It's vestiges

For taxi drivers

And poems that can't be read

Aloud

Paper Cup

I try to keep it from you

But you're like a schoolyard bully

Provoking

Trying to make me spill this

I am angry

Misanthropic

Guarded

I run

Hunched like a halfback

Crying like a killdeer

With this great burden

So small

You strike

Relentlessly

I fumble

It is finished

Emptied

Dangles from my fingers like hopelessness

The dry earth drinks

I rise

No longer consumed

I see you've pushed me to this

Well

Street Musician

Beating dusty notes

From your guitar

Like an old rug

Your rhythmic plaints

Push against the wind and

The street noise

Until a few trees are shaken

And green leaves fall

Into your basket