print previewback GENTRIS L. JOINTE
Waiting for the Diverted Trolley at 40th & Market St.
after Federico García Lorca
Meanwhile, the man in the green jacket.
The man with the mournful back
busy with his lamentations:
People think they can just waltz
right on up into heaven. Look
how everyone shuffles over this ground
that’s covered with dry sticks. Shuffle,
shuffle. This ground littered with
wax paper & moonlight & cigarette butts
& dry sticks. He’s sweeping it all up.
& the crowd yawns. An old man
nervously chews the side of his fist.
& even in the half-dark I can tell
he has a lovely mouth
full of ash & curses & besos
burned into the living thick flesh
of memory. A mouth like mine.
Is it strange of me to think so?
Someone brought a sea here!
Someone is late lugging home
fish from Reading Terminal
& the smell settles on my tongue,
I can taste the salt, the seaweed,
& the foam & I hunger toward it
like my heart thinks it’s a groaning river. 
The Other Side
Waiting for the Diverted Trolley at 40th & Market St.