3 AM St. Louis Street

photo by Jennifer66

3 AM St. Louis Street, smell of fresh bread
Halfway between inner city rebeautification
and the industrial bank of chicken butchers
not quite as far from
the refuge sought homeless and
fifty-dollar-a-night pros
A world away from the
real lives of citizenship and college tuitions.
Three blocks from the nearest coffee dive
that serves bar-thirty patrons
scrambled vestiges of strength
for the swerve home.

3 AM, smell of bleached roads
and rubber that likes the
pavement better than the tires.
Screeches of a power-brake
hosted by Rebel Rednecks in one of
sixteen IROCs not tied around a tree
Up the block, someone
pulls another all-nighter
with a few hits of Green Checkerboard
and a gallon of Sunny-D.
stereo surround sound
climbs the decibel ladder
and straddles legality

3 AM, smell of broken beer bottles
whoops and hollers and dog collars
climb out from under
The Bedrock Club and
battle balance to the death.
Fraternity girls and Sorority boys
drink their weight in spirits
The only sound that drowns
out the vomit spills over asphalt
is the couple fucking in the IROC
that breaks traction
at every light.


3 AM St. Louis Street, smell of fresh bread.
The factory is closed now
and all the workers fired
just like the TV plant before.
The political pidgeon would say that's
a sign to stay away.
Not conducive to prosperity.


It's difficult, though ...
To avoid the smell of home.

3 A.M. St. Louis Street by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.