| No parking Wednesdays at noon and the garbage lines the streets
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| A cereal box with cartoons and a price tag way too steep
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| And a fence that leans to the south around a yard with specks of grass
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| And a dog with more teeth than mouth chained up sifting through trash
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| That ice cream truck rolls too slow and the picture’s black and white
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| And the cabin up back still ain’t cold and it’s mostly out at night
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| And there ain’t no kids where it go and it don’t play music right
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| And a kid with a hoodie looks old under the traffic light
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| That liquor store sells Patron but it just sits on the shelf
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| And that Steel Reserve in the back practically sells itself
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| And the Arab up at the front don’t ever touch the stuff
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| Single Swishers and blunts in a package opened up
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| And a white tee XXXL make the men on the corners look tough
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| And the men on the corners have lines and the women walk by straight
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| Bold black and red for sale signs posted up on the gates
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| Of every other Victorian with wood over the windows
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| And someone converses about Jordans while wearing last year’s Timbos
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| And a Chinese takeout menu decorates the gates with symbols
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| And the cats are feral and fat and unreasonably nimble
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| The trash is full to the top no cans or bottles in it
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| Big bags being dragged down the street clanging and leaking liquid
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| Expired tags on a Buick with one rim all in chrome
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| And an older woman in stretch pants shuffles along too slow
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| Pieces of flowers and a poem falling off a flickering light pole
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| And a picture of someone it seems somebody used to know
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| And a buzz in the air from a congregation of telephone wires
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| And on the wires are birds sitting tiny and black
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| And tennis shoes from the 90's looking fine and intact
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| And a cable awkwardly hanging never reaching a house
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| And below it a stained up and soggy formerly leather couch
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| And rainbow patterns of oil pooling in potholed cement
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| And a screen door with no hinges hanging hopelessly bent
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| And a Bentley dressing the cover of a car magazine
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| And a Price Is Right crowd cheering on a television screen
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| With a big bat jutting out and the color mostly green
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| And a stove where one burner works and the oven should be cleaned
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| And coupons clipped on the table waiting to be redeemed
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| And a siren sings long and deep and the chopper’s double meaned
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| And the median is asleep so to wake and walk at strange things |