Sunday in a Certain City Suburb
Four men whose lives are the beginning of sun-
silenced afternoons,
And whose orange and red scarfs are the sole flowers
Of the washed-out afternoons,
Sit, shifting dominoes.
The afternoon outside of them dies, as fruit slowly
pressed between fingers,
But still the four stiff men shift dominoes . . .
Their wives, wide women with tight, garnished hair,
Sit in the back-yard, whispering tiny secrets and
munching strings of grapes.
[ . . . ]
Maxwell Bodenheim's poem "Sunday in a Certain City Suburb" was published in the 1916 Others anthology. To read the rest of this poem in this publication context visit the following link(s):
HathiTrust - original copy from Harvard University
HathiTrust - original copy from University of Michigan