The busker strums his blond and slender-hipped guitar as time
Directs his giddy step. One summer day he staked his claim
To dig for silver in the city sky. Song after song
Mapped in muscle memory, strong fingers plied the taut steel string.

Mouth red as a birthday candle, she flouts the rule of boys
Whose skateboards soar and drag and slap, and someone plays
A song she knows, and horns erupt as heat begins to mount
Between the gritty sycamores whose early shade is spent.

The light longs for the shoreline of her wave and crescent sway.
The wind takes tiny sips along her skin—as slowly she
Draws by, sinuous, and the busker’s song disintegrates 
Among the crowds that shift and swell, where curbs and markets
Roar with the work of men, and the song still fading like the tide’s 
Lapsed might, or like the morning brightness, which the noon divides.