But when the breeze shifts, the object swings sideways, and it's heart-stopping to recognize what is gently swaying above the traffic: two handguns, tied together near their triggers and obviously flung over the wire, the way kids toss their old Chuck Taylors.

An identical pair of guns swings from the wire across the street at the northwest corner.

A closer look shows that the guns are not real, but cut from black plastic or painted wood. But the image they create is so convincing, I wanted to warn people crossing the street beneath the faux firearms to stay away.

At least for their psychic protection. On such a lovely morning, with a soft breeze promising spring, the guns are as jarring to the eyes as a gunshot would be to the ears.

Who in the world would throw those guns there? Why?

Were they part of a school project? A half-dozen public and charter schools are within steps of the intersection - including Julia R. Masterman and Benjamin Franklin high schools, and the Laura Wheeler Waring elementary school, whose students were involved in a violent altercation near the corner last week.

The Masterman kids had been outdoors filming a project for an anti-violence rally when the attack happened. Their presentation took place a few days later. Maybe these crude weapons were part of the students' presentation?

But a Masterman spokeswoman knows nothing about them.

Neither does a rep from Community College of Philadelphia. The school is on the same corner where the guns bob on the wire, but the rep has never seen them before, either.

Maybe they're forms of gang communication? Gang activity in the city is on an uptick. Some teens have been victimized for something as innocent as wearing clothing in colors considered off-limits to nonmembers.

But a spokesman for the Police Department's Central Detectives, whose jurisdiction includes 16th and Spring Garden, says the swinging guns mean nothing to them. Nor are the weapons meaningful to the folks at CeaseFire Pennsylvania, whose gun-control efforts keep them in the loop, bullet-wise.

 
As yesterday stretches on, I spy two more sets of handguns, hanging over Fairmount Avenue at 22nd and 25th streets. And I read on phillyblog.com that guns also have been spotted in Queen Village and at 19th and Kater, where cops recently closed the street until Verizon workers in a bucket truck could cut the things down.

So the guns are probably supposed to be works of guerrilla art, which we are to gaze upon and ponder how they've become as ubiquitous as sneakers in this town.

Because we don't know that already, right?

That's the problem with this "art" - if, indeed, that's what it's supposed to be. It belabors a point we already know, and it does nothing but further frighten brave people who, just by living and working in this city, are already frightened enough.

Like Masterman sixth-graders Katie Kilcullen and Azja Pharr, who cowered beneath the guns yesterday while waiting for their SEPTA ride home.

"I think it's scary," says Katie, staring up at "art" that seems designed to mock the girls. "We can't come up with any reason why someone would hang them there."

I can.

Maybe someone who isn't brave enough to attach his or her name to his political statements hoped to shock us into noticing something that - duh - we already know.

But all the artist succeeded in doing was frightening schoolkids who don't deserve to feel frightened while doing something as mundane as waiting for a bus. *

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns:

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