Inventory—To 100th Street

Frank Lima

In the corner lot

      where they parked

                              green banana trucks

                         fruits

                                           palmed in paper straw

I smell

                          bedbug & kitchen-cockroach

                                                            summer afternoons

Somewhere

                          tailless

                                                     one-eyed cats

                      doting in fat garbage cans

                                              screaming with the stench

                            of rice & beans

                                                               strawberry tampax

                                  piled

                                                                           high as the smell

                                                                                    (I was small & slick)

                                              the covers tilted

                                                                              like the hat of a rock-look wino

                                                                                                                     in a deep

                                                                                                                            knee-bend nod

                                                                                                     on a beer

                                                                                                                                   can-street

                                                                                                                                Sunday morning

There were always

                                                    time-thick

                                                             empty nights

                                   of nothing to do

                                                             but listen to the

       ethereal

                                   (she lived on the top floor)

            I-go-for-more screams

                              of Charlie's pimp's woman

                                              when he beat her

                              for his good

                                            business principles

                              joy-pop the block

                                                 with morning-talk

I hear the dim iron dawn yawning

                                (I lived on Third Ave.)

        rattle

                     nights into

                                   Saturday morning

               flag-bloomer

                                 eclipses

         just before the hunt—

                         they were as big—

                                   the cats

                  like jungle bunnies

                        fierce with fleas & sores

I see window-people

             hanging out of gooey-stick slips

                                       sweating

                                       strange

         below-the-button drawers

                    crouched junkies in hallways

                               with monkey backs

            eating cellophane bananas

                                    on a g-string

                                                              waiting

                                      for that last bust

                      Spies with cock-comb

                                                       hair fronts

                                 ear-gulping mambo music

                                 eye-lapping pepperican flower

                                                       crotches

I can hear the streets whispering

                                       in the ears of yelping kids

                    in the fun-gushing that

                                 rippled my blood

                                                   in the pump

                                                    but the kids

                                                                       are dying in the lot

                                                            like the tarry-blown feet

                                                                              of the rain

                                                                                                jingling

                                                                             on the rusty-green

                                                                                 of yesterday's

                                                                                              fire-escapes.