ANY CITY

Into the staring street

She goes on her nightly round,

With weary and tireless feet

Over the wretched ground.

A thing that man never spurns,

A thing that all men despise;

Into her soul there burns

The street with its pitiless eyes.

She needs no charm or wile,

She carries no beauty or power,

But a tawdry and casual smile

For a tawdry and casual hour.

The street with its pitiless eyes

Follows wherever she lurks,

But she is hardened and wise —

She rattles her bracelets and smirks...

She goes with her sordid array,

Luring, without a lure;

She is man's hunger and prey —

His lust and its hideous cure.

All that she knows are the lies,

The evil, the squalor, the scars;

The street with its pitiless eyes,

The night with its pitiless stars.