Classic Poem

The streets are no place for little dogs. The rain beating down on the discarded couch, the leather breathing hard. The small eyes of cigarettes blinking in the alley. Tomorrow the junkies will suffer a great defeat, tonight they coo like kept pigeons. A child is a dog if you look hard enough. A dog with a matchbook of fireflies, playing in a field. A dog running with scissors through the pages of its parents' wedding album. I'd like to drape the neighbor's dog in my arms, stand at the crosswalk and wait for the clouds to part. I'd tiptoe gingerly down the glass-laden streets, careful not to pause too long at the butcher's window. We'd pop into the soda shop for an egg-cream, some button-candy and we'd be gone, leaving only the sewer grates to gape in wonder at our passing. The streets are no place for little dogs. Much reeling in of fishhooks from darkened lampposts. Much multiplying of mailboxes when you aren't looking. Beneath every manhole cover sits a man, crouching like a spider. In the air above your forehead, your breath twists like a doll on a shoestring. The streets are no place for little dogs. I sit it in the seat beside me and slowly drive away.