Lenity In the Slums

She lit candles in her empty kitchen. Burnt air disappears through the back door. Pale and wild, brittle street witch, shy, wide eyes. Her mind like a weathered epitaph, left alone in it's quiet mystery; but her spirit roams gentle and porous. City sorrows like ashes cling to her rags, sting her eyes. Their faces burn inside her like dim candles giving warmth to her own melancholy. The cafe windows are boarded up. She walks home with November chimney ghosts and a dying sun, while she conjures visions of love. Love is the sad hazy eyes and cigarette swirls that swallow the haunted dusk ruins. Old souls in the streets waltzing across black gardens. Dazed escapists shedding lonesome and tired teenage skin. All their secrets out, kissing their willow bones licking and scorching their dirty feet. The hymns of a thousand hobos. The wind with it's cinders, bells, and organ chord lullabies. Fleeing boxcars cradle drunks with tangled hearts. Junkies smoking by fountains, paint their reflections angelic in the water. Graffiti stains the walls in abandoned churches, where wild haired children wrote their names. Misery missed this place. Love evoked their bone yard to flesh.