[Don Jones]

A tableau from NYC's Alphabet City. Having lived in America's greatest town, I feel the poem's imagery quite sharply. It paints a perfect picture in my head. On the other hand, there is surely more than one city with an "Avenue D," so this doesn't have to be NYC but the poem's craft succeed in carving an image in my mind and in light of my experience, it might as well be the Big Apple.

As others have noted, "morn" spills the milk all over this lovely tableau. Why not "dawn"? Which of course means a new rhyme word for "shorn." No problem, though, for the person who submitted this one.

Don

Added in: In light of Paul's comment, which I read after posting my first,

then prove us snags all wrong—the standing dead—.

My first take was that "standing dead" went with "us," the readers and the world in general that witnesses these two lindens. I'm not sure that the context helps. If the trees are the "standing dead," well, they aren't dead yet! Or, maybe that's meant to reflect what humans, "us," are supposed to think of the two threatened trees, that they stand in mortal danger?

On the other hand, are we, the readers and witnesses, the "standing dead"? That seems unlikely as such a judgment is not warranted by the poem. This line isn't clear enough. I wonder if the syntax could be improved to clearly mark the referent. Or rewrite entirely.