At the corner of Essex and Main
in a cold winter month
you hold signed papers in your hands,
and stand beneath the two street signs.
almost pulling you after them,
this way, that way, this way
like everything always has,
everything on the way here,
until this job, this girl, this place, this time.
You’re seeing how wide the street is,
how much it can hold in one place,
all the lives that pass and disappear
in the minutes where you wait
until there is nothing between you
and where you parked.
-Brent Allard