in the city where they rise now, weeds waist high in summer times, aglitter under with still-luxuriant diamonds when the sun shines just so, even in winter before lost under snow
all that's left of the window from which a sweet Juliet surveyed prospects playing touch football below in the street, pausing gridiron glories for passing cars or ladies with bags of groceries in arm
the broken tooth of the block, just a lot, brick and rock packed hard under metal treads of reaping machines, attracting a profane collection of neighborsβ wind-blown refuse to which none will lay claim today
the lovely vanished, as if her gaze west as sun set finally pulled her away through clear panes, one life rejected limited, mundane and left lifeless a cradle to crumble
none here remember her every face changed, new as the years or aged by insults of time and moved on - nor she the stoop, once so sturdy and safe; an ancient sycamore's welcome embrace, cool every August, would last forever to the innocent mind of a child
and the woman forgot the crack in the cemented back yard where ants lived - a girl once stared for hours as they harvested a crust of sandwich hidden from the raucous street, the heat of the sun,
which she decided to follow to its glorious end, leaving behind a field fallow where ants, oblivious to a world that had changed, fend, still, for a meal in their broken concrete