They look like flowers,
slick and black,open overhead,
reddened now by rain that burns like
alcohol lubricant on chaste membranes...
Nightfall herself now stays away from this place,
pursued by the steaming hostile rumours.
They crowd out, black blossoms tattered
and extinct in flooded gutters.
Spreading bright new silver umbrellas,
an expensive design to protect
from the infection of rain.
The plastic turns to melting smiles
and mercury streams above their naked heads.
It all comes down at once in bursts and spouts
rivulets of colour that make
Crayola junkies salivate and shake.
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