The Reveal

The sun is a heat that the sidewalk can't hold,

melting the grey from the black and the gold.

The neighborhood is a long, wet tongue

tasting the winter that stayed far too long.

A lottery ticket, sun-faded and red,

stuck to the gutter, half-alive and half-dead.

A soggy pink scab on the lip of the street,

trodden into the mud by a thousand feet.

Everything the snow was trying to hide

is rotting out here on the outside.