Morning Mechanical

Soft copper streaks melt slowly
adding depth to the fall morning.
Garbage trucks and school buses
snap bitterly to life
smelling of burnt motor oil and doughnuts.

Tentative stray cats
slink gracefully behind overgrown grasses,
obediently licking each other’s oily necks.

Thick working-class fingers
grasp warm breasts
then abused metal and latex.

Drug-hazed prostitutes
stagger across slippery bridges
past misty wharfs and gently purring jetties;
fading imperceptibly to black.