Our split-level, brick ranch-house sits, metal
bars over the living room windows, front

lawn in shadow, wedged between two homes
exactly the same. Police sirens wail. Kids

smoking joints under the blinking street lamp scatter
across the asphalt of a street, riddled with broken glass

and soda caps. The sidewalk too is cracked,
roots of the lone mimosa buckling the concrete,

the knuckled up fist trying to extend its fingers.
A rope belts the tree that leans. Its pink flowers,

fragile umbrellas, sway in gusts of grey smoke
that puff up from open barbecue pits. Partyers done,

they slap water on their grills. Neighbors light up
cigarettes. Orange ash marks the nodding of their heads.

Even the fireflies linger,
floating in air, yellow bellies glowing, while

the neon lady of the night at Downey’s Bar
across the street flicks her hips.

– Paula Brancato

Author’s Note: This piece was published online by BOMB Magazine in 2009. It also appeared in a chapbook I wrote called For My Father.