4th

Street of loud parades,
I slide along your vein
like a heartbeat, every night.

I live on you. Wipe your soot from my prizes.
I hear you complain
on long days of summer.
You are a tunnel in winter, on cold, glistening,
pocked skin.
My own skin has been torn, ripped and stolen by greedy gravel
hidden in your shadows. Missed step.

But you go on
under dog crap, syringes, daffodils,
moving toward the next
parade, the many feet touching my private path
and sharing
my
carnal knowledge of you.

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