Block

No parking Wednesdays at noon and the garbage lines the streets
A cereal box with cartoons and a price tag way too steep
And a fence that leans to the south around a yard with specks of grass
And a dog with more teeth than mouth chained up sifting through trash
That ice cream truck rolls too slow and the picture's black and white
And the cabin up back still ain't cold and it's mostly out at night
And there ain't no kids where it go and it don't play music right
And a kid with a hoodie looks old under the traffic light
That liquor store sells Patron but it just sits on the shelf
And that Steel Reserve in the back practically sells itself
And the Arab up at the front don't ever touch the stuff
Single Swishers and blunts in a package opened up
And a white tee XXXL make the men on the corners look tough

And the men on the corners have lines and the women walk by straight
Bold black and red for sale signs posted up on the gates
Of every other Victorian with wood over the windows
And someone converses about Jordan's while wearing last year's Timbo's
And a Chinese takeout menu decorates the gates with symbols
And the cats are feral and fat and unreasonably nimble
The trash is full to the top no cans or bottles in it
Big bags being dragged down the street clanging and leaking liquid
Expired tags on a Buick with one rim all in chrome
And an older woman in stretch pants shuffles along too slow
Pieces of flowers and a poem falling off a flickering light pole
And a picture of someone it seems somebody used to know
And a buzz in the air from a congregation of telephone wires

And on the wires are birds sitting tiny and black
And tennis shoes from the 90's looking fine and intact
And a cable awkwardly hanging never reaching a house
And below it a stained up and soggy formerly leather couch
And rainbow patterns of oil pooling in potholed cement
And a screen door with no hinges hanging hopelessly bent
And a Bentley dressing the cover of a car magazine
And a Price Is Right crowd cheering on a television screen
With a big bat jutting out and the color mostly green
And a stove where one burner works and the oven should be cleaned
And coupons clipped on the table waiting to be redeemed
And a siren sings long and deep and the chopper's double meaned
And the median is asleep so to wake and walk at strange things