Sunday, January 27, 2013

Flushing, Queens


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.