My road is a wide racecar lane
Or gutter coaster home
Pothole turns trucks to tambourines
Gardens creep up northwest hills
Two men walk by in their Thursday best
Canes hover but rarely land
As dragonfly skims the stream
This street was once a trolley line
With consistent connections
3100 miles: East to west north to south near to far
It cast the mold of this streetcar suburb
Then bankrupt due to the rubber wheel
And our need for upholstered
isolation I mourn its loss as we mourn
Each death due to these wide roads
A child scooters to school
Another, backpack hung low, meanders alone
Wasps buzz across the crosswalk
Families create a buzz all their own
Face of delight, face scrunched in concentration
I see signs written in the common language: Much Time Together
For children: That’s Forever
We sold the trolleys to Rio de Janeiro
A national landmark climbing up its own complicated hills
What strange delight!
Worcester to Rio
Brazil now to Worcester
The heart of Worcester in movement and people
Old and new
Embedded in shared body-land