This poem comes from my days living in Pawtucketville in the 1980s. It was first published in “The Spanner,” the news bulletin of the now-Independent University Alumni Association at Lowell, related to UMass Lowell.—PM

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214 Sixth Avenue

Bright snow at midnight in the shut-down neighborhood,

Mute homes of folks I can’t name, but the storm made it clear,

Filling every open space, that we’re on top of each other

In the many-storied blocks tied to long black power lines

And banked with a monster drift, which the twirling lamp

Of a truck plow turns gold as the chains clank past.

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—Paul Marion (c) 1989