Dazzle-bright signs
In alien characters
Light the way
For fleets of buses
Burping diesel
On the teeming sidewalks
Storefronts
Paved over Quaker farmland
Odd monuments linger
For a sacred past
The streets break way
For brick buildings
And green lawns,
Rows of houses
That remember simpler times
Sidle past
The looping language
Of churches
Where once were family homes
We take it all in,
Souls sizzling like all-night barbecue.
