Those leaves on the city’s sycamores
will not move in the heat tonight.
In a brownstone, a nude couple
sits on damp sheets. He bends to clean
between his toes, she scratches her back.

On a façade, faded paint peels
off a groom grinning in a tux;
his weakly smiling bride presses 
a tiny nosegay to her belly.

On a billboard, an enormous
head of a baby deeply sleeps;
it breathes in and out through the thin
dark slit of its mouth. But see:

Someone in an undershirt
cranes from an upper window,
watching a red-winged Pegasus
glow on Mobil Oil’s blimp
droning through a violet swelter.


appeared in: The GW Review - George Washington University