streets

the streets are slick
filled with puddle jumping girls in white floral dresses
and their yellow fathers who watch them
or rather
the dirty water vanishing into the thirsty gutter
as they take a long drag from their fourth cigarette
wondering how their daughters got to be so goddamned lucky

clattering heels enter and exit slippery cabs
that smell like body odor and cheap sex with bubblegum
and soon disappear behind swollen doors to dark houses
where plaster people hold plastic cups and each other
to forget
or remind themselves
that they are here

and the din of emergency brakes and ambulances
punctuates the smug silence of the stars
that hang above
reminding us of what we’re made of
and what we’ll never be