The grocer carefully setting up fresh fruits and vegetables
His wife cranking up the green and white awning of the store
Men playing cards for money in the shade of the umbrella trees
Sitting backward in the wooden kitchen chairs on the sidewalk
Tableclothed plywood atop two wine barrels as the playing table
Paperboy whistling while delivering the morning papers:
Marilyn Monroe found dead of an overdose in the nude!
Stale bread thrown out the back door of the Italian bakery
Flocks of hungry birds delighting at the impromptu feast
Polish lady sweeping the gutter in front of her house
Unstockinged feet bare in black leather penny loafers
Open fire hydrant at the corner spraying cool water
Kids in underwear or shorts running through, laughing loudly
Shrieking muffled by the churning of a cement mixing truck
Teenagers riding up the Avenue in a Pontiac Catalina
Honking the horn and yelling at friends on the street
Their minds still uncluttered with the worries of life,
Hearts still unbroken, life still a dream, values still intact
President Kennedy still ruled Pre-Missile Crisis Camelot,
Ante-Viet Nam-Bellum, Pre-Beatles, Pre-Assasination,
The Summer of '62 - Last Summer of the Age of Innocence
©2000 poetheart