poems by owen lucas

Further down the street the street-lights stare, cars hurry away, the cold creeps up behind you like a sex offender, the echo continues of a thunderclap that never came to wash the filth off the pale sidewalks, the malnourished, consumptive shop fronts- the inhabitants cower in their rancid corners, too far back in their shells of poverty and paranoia to give help to another. Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown.