Monday Morning (Downtown)

 

Monday Morning (Downtown)

Watch the shadow puppets and the dancing girls
downtown on the bus w/ their lunch buckets.
Parading lightly through crosswalks
singing their songs of an affordable freedom.
Everyone watching the ice melt in their eyes.

The streets are ripe w/ the smell of summer,
the buildings guard an invisible perimeter.
Business men, shy and incompetent slide
unnoticed into cracks in the walls.
Junkies, piercing the air and craning their arms,
float unobserved into traffic,
as taxis roll in from suburban hell.

The bus chokes out fumes,
spits people out whole, their souls dulled
their hearts turned sideways, dragging at their feet.
I love downtown Mondays, where the air is thin
and promises never come true.