Between the Streets
By Barry Ballard

There's a young man taking steps while sitting
in his wheelchair, and he's locking his brimful
of eyesight on me as if we were somehow
to navigate this ramp like brothers,
as if the muscular twists in his drifting
body mirrored the twists of unfathomable
truth buried in mine. And I wonder if the plowed
moment ahead of us is more of a disturbed

silence and recognition in all the world's
mistake of a false symmetry, or if he's
already clenched it in the strength of an
imaginary fist, or if the proof hurled
between us has already seen us here,
shoulder to shoulder, marking our fate in the sand.

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