street doused in grey

but the tree-pit pansies
their ennui-proof faces
on 124th Street
Frida Kahlo’s floating head
my grandmother’s eyebrows
were also impressive
perpetually inquisitive
severe in their beauty
bundles of sopping cardboard
belted schoolbooks
of the past century
lessons irrelevant
as the face of a woman
the speed of information
the downpour undetected
by uninvented Doppler radar
it’s all the same water
my daughter reminds me
how ancient the element
that gives life and learns nothing