Broad Street singers

broad street singers
                  (the winter of 1969, Philadelphia Naval Hospital)

they never heard us.
night after night
the city fathers
(that raft of riff),
brothered our love
but wouldn’t keep us.

we was their expressway
for we had done wrong.
gone wrong.
too much reminding,

so they drove after us.
sure as time,
they caught us.

broke and hurt
as we were,
spirit-tough was our way.
they knew there was a fight.

       no one saw it.
       their words
       closed the doors
       on us. forever.