UNEVEN PAVEMENT SURFACE say the signs
on Cedar Street to slow the drivers down,
so cars proceeding westward in their lines
and stopping at the corner, seem to bow
like courtiers before their sovereign,
an octagon of cautionary red,
until the sounds of jack hammers begin,
and chase the charmed allusion from my head.

Now asphalt dust whirls upward in a cloud
of noisy irritation, and the street
is stripped to ripples, everywhere a loud
and gritty insult to the lungs, the feet,
the vehicles: the colors gloomy gray
that rise to match the morning fog today.