Spring

A spring wind on the Bowery,     Blowing the fluff of night shelters     Off bedraggled garments,     And agitating the gutters, that eject little spirals of vapor     Like lewd growths.     Bare-legged children stamp in the puddles, splashing each other,     One - with a choir-boy's face     Twits me as I pass...     The word, like a muddied drop,     Seems to roll over and not out of     The bowed lips,     Yet dewy red     And sweetly immature.     People sniff the air with an upward look -     Even the mite of a girl     Who never plays...     Her mother smiles at her     With eyes like vacant lots     Rimming vistas of mean streets     And endless washing days...     Yet with sun on the lines     And a drying breeze.     The old candy woman     Shivers in the young wind.     Her eyes - littered with memories     Like ancient garrets,     Or dusty unaired rooms where someone died -     Ask nothing of the spring.     But a pale pink dream     Trembles about this young girl's body,     Draping it like a glowing aura.     She gloats in a mirror     Over her gaudy hat,     With its flower God never thought of...     And the dream, unrestrained,     Floats about the loins of a soldier,     Where it quivers a moment,     Warming to a crimson     Like the scarf of a toreador...     But the delicate gossamer breaks at his contact     And recoils to her in strands of shattered rose.