Sunset City

Say the empties go out.
A girl in the window wavers.
Say the old dog rattles
attached to the back of the yard, and here comes
the holy ice-cream truck,
that rhyme & cling paused
where children spin. And say, the empties
gone out (you’ve rinsed the bottles, the mouth
of each bottle) and the girl’s
turned in a window beyond which the dog, that pile of bones,
keeps rattling, say the light of the streetlamp
pools over the names, again
etched in cement–Brianne, Amber–and how quiet
it gets. Sunday in the city. The man at the corner
locks the shop grate.
Down the street goes his car, goes
the echo of his music
and up comes the bus, local
in the evening, turning toward 10th, the windows
filthy, streaked where you see yourself
barely but there
drawing away in the gloaming.

Kate Northrop