the gray skies
have been unrelenting
teasing storms
doing nothing except
blotting the sky
in dreary odes to
sleepless romanticism
in restless wonder

the park is lively
just myself and the
sparrows staring from
a verdant canopy
stray kittens prowling
in the high grass
and a woman arguing
loudly with herself

a squeak squeak squeak
breaks the spell of
daydreaming fools caught
up in gentle trilling
as a man pulls a red wagon
overladen with crushed cans
and pokes through the
overflowing garbage cans

soon it will be three
or four months of fire
the clouds evaporated
by the sun’s petulant gaze
the grass will go brown
the kittens gone feral
and only a fool and his
flock of sparrows remain

then comes the fervent
pleading for the rains
that sat swollen but
unwilling to tumble down
never quite happy with
the discontent underlying
through this ossuary of
concrete and glass