Grit

I remember the whole of Peoria street

Sitting out on sweltering nights,

Sweat trickling down the nubs on my back,

Gritty city baking into my bones.

It was never quiet those nights,

Most of my ma’s side on the front porch

Telling stories of their wild days,

Mostly before me and my cousins memories

Got under foot with our curious ears.

The rest of the block hummed and bounced, too,

In the heat, with the occasional domestic dispute,

Or unruly child taken brusquely to task.

Grit does describe it best,

Cinder dust churned up all day

In the truck lot across the street,

And the static charge infused into the air

By the scrap metal yard’s electro-magnet

Suspended from a crane picking up scrap

Like a praying mantis going over

The desiccated parts of other monsters

Besides the human ones prowling the dark city nights

While the rest of us simmered mostly unaware

On our front porches, before sputnik,

When I thought you could tell the bad guys

By their black hats.