Fourth Street

Fourth Street is narrow,
lined with some other generation's rust-red brick tenements
that loom four stories high.
On summer nights there's heat,
such heat as you'd think hidden steam kettles boiled,
big as boulders wheezing steam from below.
Balconies and windows,
decorated with sweat-streaked folk,
rubbernecking above Fourth Street,
yearning for the messiah breeze
that breaks promises anew.
Apartments built, some say
suited to bake as giant dutch ovens,
cooking the mewling babes and scar-knuckled providers the same.
Ice melts in tea pitchers and gin tumblers faster
than the sole scoop of vanilla on a hot plate.
Pavement shimmering, soaking up the day's heat,
lazily releasing its searing power past sundown.
From the fourth story balconies,
the apshalt moves, a twitching, ponderous lava flow.
The pack of tongue-lolling dogs trot
across Fourth Street, paws lifting in silent agony,
eyes scanning for something cool,
a puddle or old shade.