IN THE STREET

IN THE STREET
       --after Yun Dongju

Street of moonlight
street of a northern land
shimmmies in the violent wind
I a small mermaid
a-swimming under streetlamps
the city's pearls,
the moon and lamps
splinter each other into a pair of shadows or three,
that grow and shrink.

Street of anguish
night streets ashen gray
My mind paces
shoved along by incoming gale
Despite my loneliness
my mind's shadows
bloom leaf by leaf,
blue daydreams
rise and fall.

--Duane Vorhees