In the damp misty morning of uncertainty,
The streetlights mournful hum is lost
To the slow sweeping of the silent street cleaner.
With each methodic stroke he erases
The events of times past.

The wine bottles discarded by a decrepit old man,
Lay shattered and broken in the musty
Entrance of the 10^th Street subway,
Which glides unseen, unheard beneath
The iambic strokes of the street cleaner.

The lock to Charlie’s Pool Hall snaps soundly
Under the pressure of a man’s massive hand,
To be reopened only at the requiem of the day’s light.

One of the city’s finest sips impatiently
At his cup of coffee, sensing the near
Completion of his beat, while a truck
Rolls mechanically to a stop.

And the damp misty morning is filled yet again
With the events that the methodic strokes
Of the silent street cleaner will erase.

ESM

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