Look there: a lamplit street
winds through your head
in your mother's kitchen.

Take the scarred spoon,
align it with the hungry knife.
Peek at the brick factory
through the shade of the window.

Watch smoke rise from the street.
Such a monotonous sheen to your eye,
your mother chimes in in a brogue.
There's a well at the end of the street,

brick too. You are hungry,
and the only light is on this street.
You can only see the shuffle of the baker,
the milkman done. Where are you?

It's quiet here, even your stomach is even,
even your mother evens out.
As you age, you remember with
more and more lacy zest

the street in the street, how even
the street is in your spoon,
your head a horse-drawn cart
the ragman clanks in, everything fits,
even Eastern Europe.