Caught high in locust branches, bright yellow, white,
and blue grocery bags flap in the breeze like prayer flags
blessing an avenue of apartment buildings, corner stores
and dark, smoky bars.
Windows broken, caged by rusting fence,
a redbrick factory nearby peers vacantly at the river below,
beckoning like a ruined castle on the barren moors
of a gothic novel.
Water glows with oily prismatic reflections
from a gel lens sky where a sunset
is amped by the aerosol exhalations of tailpipes
and power plants.
