Love Letter

In my city
of two glove karma
the porches sing
neighbors face the street to say hello
In my city of many languages we greet each other with the universal language
clasp hands and smile pointing to the sky
In my city of sincerity
the tattooed man and the toddler
wheeled in a stroller, are part of the landscape.
A couple pushes rattling shopping carts full of tin cans to recycle for nickels and dimes
there's a man on a motorized bicycle making deliveries from a black knapsack
In my city we are always dreaming from the hilltops and the valleys
staring at the river remembering the history
the brick and granite mills and towering cylindrical and rectangular chimneys
In my city I write love letters, poems to my friends
at 3AM while the dough rises and falls
and gets shaped and baked
at dawn in the big black community oven on my street
in my city it's okay to go to sleep early.