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Seen from the #81 bus:

The houses which line the main street need painted

Old women pull weeds in front gardens
while their husbands drink espresso in cafes
and watch young girls in tight jeans walk by

A man cleans the steps outside his dry cleaning store
People sit there waiting for the bus
they leave pop cans and cigarette butts behind

Across the street the McDonald's is crowded with kids

hanging out
putting off going to school

The beauty salons all look the same
they have the same pictures in their windows
of hairstyles that went out of style in the fifties

People sit outside the laundromat on plastic chairs
A little girl throws her doll into the air
and misses catching it

The baptist church on the corner declares
we all MUST be saved

A restaurant which advertises for a new waitress every other week
has tables and chairs on the sidewalk
you can enjoy carbon monoxide with your meal

The windows of the gym are steamed up early in the morning
while the college campus across from it looks like a deserted prison yard
with its depressing industrial green exterior
it is surrounded by a high chain-link fence

One man keeps a constant watch on the street
he was there last summer
and the summer before that
he will probably be there next summer
He sits at the edge of his lawn and watches
traffic and people go by
his mustache grows into his sideburns
he looks like a Greek sailor of days past
keeping an eye on the horizon.

Learn more about this author, Susan Keeping.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

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