PoetryAloud

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Don Krieger Reads

Dream Street

I left her the house 
and got a place on Torley. Each night 
the neighbors put chairs on the sidewalk,
turn the TV face out, drink Iron City
and watch the kids play in the street.

I get home from work at 6 or 10
or 2, shower and then sleep 
with eyes open:

a child shrieking on a hospital gurney,
her spine filleted and straightened,
the smell of burning in my hair,

a new mother life-flighted from the mall,
brain shifting in her head, 
crushed by bleeding while we watch.

We drink coffee and wait 
while a father facing doom in our hands 
says good bye to his children;

each day I pedal in over the Bloomfield Bridge,
or drive when called at night, never knowing 
that it will get worse. 

Gary Beck

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