Nola and Alla.

[groove]

Broken pebbles and sharp glass clung
to the skin of their feet, as little Nola
and Miss Alla, paraded down the street
with plastic cup in grasp, and puzzled,
stratched small hand to head, to remember
just what it was the other one had said

"When I was young, and the ground was
still whole, we would walk without worry
and leave our shoes at home," she spoke,
plucking a rock from the ground to throw,
she ran her hand across the window of the
nearby doll shop, and suddenly it stopped

Little Nola sipped hot coffee through a
plastic straw, looked up at the blue sky
and for once thought she saw something fall,
so she rubbed her eyes to see those dark
clouds that did haunt all the thoughts
and the whispers of the people, still

Sleeping to wake up screaming, deep
slumber dreaming of floating away, and
she'll say to them, "It's nothing,
there's nothing to worry about today,
maybe tomorrow, maybe never, just watch
and wait, and maybe, maybe, may be."

They are watching metal streetlamps bend
and you are holding shaking lips to hand,
to hearts, to chest, to head, little Nola
and Miss Alla, wide awake in bed, sighing
"this is just a dream," because there is
nothing real in a city that can't sleep.