Will you walk with me tonight?

Edda, will you walk with me
     tonight
in mad circles 
talking to the winos,
to the homeless,
to the drifters
     who sell their scraps
all up and down
the avenue?

Since you’ve been gone,
the cops have barricaded
the streets.
They’ve imprisoned the whores,
even confiscating
their pale
     gray souls
while your dying mother
moans in pain
and you march
under a Southern Cross.