LEGEND

Our own city had the second highest

VD rate in the country yielding

only to Hagerstown Maryland

we boasted aged somewhere around eleven

taking credit for it thinking we might

even be first it was fundamental

knowledge closer to home than the famous

roller coaster down at Rocky Glen

which we agreed was one of the world's

most dangerous with its hairpin trestle

out over the water and the whole thing

about to collapse a lady got on

back in the summer with a baby

and when they got off the baby was dead

but the steady aura of the unspeakable

emanated from figures like Jenny

Dee the reigning madam whom we had not seen

but we all knew she rode in a chauffeur-driven

black Cadillac with flags on the fenders

and was friends with the mayor the Chamber

of Commerce and the police it was a mile

exactly to the courthouse downtown

by the shortcut over the embankment

and along the weedy right-of-way to the iron

truss across the already stove-black

Lackawanna drunks who fell in there

were known to be blown-up and all shades of blue

by the time they were fished out on the South Side

the paint was worn off the top of the truss

where we ran across it into the smell

of the gasworks which haunted us part way

up the steep cobbles past the one gray house

all by itself with its shades drawn tight

and lights on in the daytime we never

saw anyone go in or come out of there

two dollars to the best of our belief

on the far side of the street whispering

through the cold echoes under the railroad bridge