Narrating A Moment

I watch her legs wobble as she crosses the street

and tries to regain her balance. A man crossing

in the opposite direction stares briefly, intensely

at her. She does not see his gaze. As he passes

he looks back to see her from behind. 

She disappears into the city as the man reaches 

the sidewalk, his right foot catching slightly

on the curb. A car cuts a quick turn behind him.

He utters a mumbled curse and keeps walking.

I see the time and empty the last of the coffee. 

Everything Breaking Down

She was waving her arms frantically and yelling

by the crumbling bus station in downtown.


The cars in front of me began to roll up their

windows as they approached.


She didn't look particularly destitute,

as I turned the corner her gaze caught me,


an unsettling intensity, a manic energy

that was freed and had nowhere to go


but out in every direction possible.

Her voice was muffled by the windows.


I drove past her and past my destination.

I needed to be far, far from there.

7 Street and the 5 Freeway

The sound of a thousand hissing snakes
weaves between creaking brakes,
the audible miscellany of industry.

Insects bathed in primary colors
of various shades and dullness
cruise by, a parade contained on

ribboned strips of black and gray,
pathways from A to B and undesirable
destinations  populating in between.

Trees grow in scattered isolation,
glints of color in a place
of dreary practicality. They grow

in a jungle of hardened expectations,
caged by concrete, their roots can only
resist their capture by cracking sidewalk.