A soft summer rain,
clicking of some insect or
raccoon or squirrel off in
trees, purple-orange sky
haze in the distance, beyond that,
the city, I walk out into scene
swinging trash bag, cutting down
invisible spider-webs,
the dumpster looks at me
with dead eyes like the dead
eyes staring out wet
tree branches, like the dead eyes
leering under cars, like the dead eyes
from the million cold bodies
buried in all the cemeteries of the world,
and I toss the bag into the
gaping black mouth weary of stepping
any closer,
walk out into the street
where I feel somehow I’m safe,
for a moment, before turning
back toward the old brick
apartment building
with its dark windows
watching,
and its own dead eyes
wondering.
Tom Pescatore grew up outside Philadelphia, dreaming of the endless road ahead, carrying the idea of the fabled West in his heart. He maintains a poetry blog. His work has been published in literary magazines both nationally and internationally, but he’d rather have them carved on the Walt Whitman bridge or on the sidewalks of Philadelphia’s old Skid Row.