Parked on Kelly Drive in Philadelphia

The spring storm spilled over the banks of the sky 
and drowned the world below, if only for a day. 

I’m parked by the river that bisects this dirty city
where grass grows only in the cracks of the street.

Things natural, unnatural, and unknown drift past,
bobbing in the spume of sputum-colored water. 

On the street behind me, wheel-mounted stereos
glide by, obliterating with their bass my bones 

as well as my Bing, who, dead now these forty-five
years, still wants me to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive. 

Easy enough to say, that, especially from within 
a cardigan shroud and ancient pipe-smoke. 

They say he beat his children, so there’s that, too,
but then there’s always awfulness, isn’t there? 

And also this: more clouds have lumbered in to thump 
their dirty, quilted bottoms against the glaring pates 

of our tallest buildings, the glass hives of the wingless. 
Suicide skies are the norm here, you see, not the hale sun, 

which is why your ears always hear in the fountains
the matrons of Rittenhouse Square crying, Once . . . 

Meanwhile, the ginkgo streets of Kensington continue 
to reek, and the ghosts at Somerset Station are dying again.

KEVIN GRAUKE

Kevin Grauke has published work in such places as The Threepenny Review, The Southern Review, Quarterly West, Ninth Letter, and Cimarron Review. He’s the author of the short story collection Shadows of Men (Queen’s Ferry Press). Bullies & Cowards is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in 2026. He teaches at La Salle University and lives in Philadelphia.