from Subway Sonnets

Steve Fried

1. "a breast of bright sunshine" writes Chen Dongdong.
On Foster Avenue, when the sun comes out
mornings, the one treed side dusts shade along
a double yellow line. One trucker shouts

"motherfucker" at two other truckers; stores
roll open armored shades; owners with brooms
order debris in mounds; smart Russian pours
its stream in Creole rivers, patois blooms

Jamaican magnolias, mango on red.
In rooms above, hard drinkers wheeze supine
anaesthetized undreaming, roll from bed
only when the liquor store's gate roars high.

The sun climbs westward, like a breast a breath
lifts to a lover's shaped and setting mouth.

Steve Fried