'Arch Street', a Poem from the collection 'Jersey Blues'

Arch Street, Philadelphia (West from Broad St.), by James Cremer, 1821-1893

 

Arch Street

How fervent with life is the ephemeral city:
effervescent lives, yet doomed,
so precarious that, if only
awakened, the wind could easily push
aside, shuffling faces and destinies,
on an idle Saturday’s mid-Summer noon.

The sidewalks of China Town,
the alleys, the workshops, the odorous walls,
holding us to their ancient womb;
the fleeting hug of a mother,
already sunk into oblivion, to the
rascal lost on the street.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, July 2005 

From "Jersey Blues: Selected Poems", also available on Amazon Kindle, iBookstore and NOOK Book.