Downtown
by Laurence W. Thomas

When we were young in suburbs
of window boxes and picket fences
we couldn’t find around our houses
mysteries in doorways opening
to groin-wrenching encounters
with irresistible gilded gods
miraculously appearing.
In the alleys behind our houses
Christmas trees died in January,
dumpsters where garden clippings
withered in July, compelled us less 
than tenebrous alleyways leading
to intriguing midnight trysts
high in hopes of finding ecstasy
in some walk-up, cold-water flat.
At home, our windows looked out
over husbandry and housewives
in housecoats fencing gossip,
not the brawls and pawing over
unattainable merchandise
and second-hand goods hardly
worth the wrangling. Our mothers
haggled over bargain basement prices,
hoping to deck us out in affordable rags,
a far cry from the minks and ermines
we envisioned ourselves in — downtown.

Laurence W. Thomas lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan.