Beauty Supply Poem by Lee Ann Brown

Sheaves of wheat in cement relief
Supply the beauties of Archer Ave.

Past the scaffolded brick church spire
We turn on the vacant corner lot

Through winds worthy of Hopkins (Gerard M.)
New words — Alexus — Everything must go

"Include everything in poetry"
Even the things you think are nothing

Like the way the new white snowflake
Decoration waves its wild tentacles
against the high blue sky

loop and angle
Black graffiti palimpsests the
yellow official sign of Danger
in bus stairwell

She stares at me unsmiling
with cold Northface
Notices me writing but says nothing
with her eye

The corner lot I used to chart or cheat in its ‘vacancies'
Configures new blown trash and walk through paths

Subjected to random search

Has grown a mouth of gravel
Constructed in a cone
Surrounded by temporary fence
Of blue nailed board

Now on Roti Avenue
Cutlery & Wang Quai

Amalgam of chairs,
Jamaica Island Center