Boardwalk
Dave Clawson
Past Fifth Street and Pine Avenue, there is a street with flashing
lights and crowded shops
The lights say Coca-Cola, No Vacancy, Open Twenty-four Hours
and Coors
Other lights that fill the air are the street lamps that are
made of solid concrete and an aluminum arm that suspends the lamp The post serves as support for a hobo, with his paper bag
crumpled in the shaking grip of his hand
Behind him lies another on the sidewalk, inside a cardboard box
And past them drive the limousines with the tinted windows and TV antennas and the license plates that say "Carson 5"
and "Lottery"
And taxi's horns beep as an old lady tries to cross the street and a hundred others scamper in different directions inside the
white lines of the crosswalk
They call it the boardwalk, where the aroma of fast food lingers as long as the mime, with his hat pinched between his fingers
and a cane at his side, intrigues the little boy in the crooked baseball
cap and the ice-cream stained shirt;
Where the apartment houses thirty stories tall have the laundry
hanging over the fire escapes and the crippled man leans unsteadily
on his cane and the children sit on the windowsills looking down at the hobo,
sleeping in a box
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