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| Coin Catchers |
| Take the man squatting on newspaper on the sidewalk in the hottish wind, blown, tangled locks and spittle runs down wine-red lips with closed eyes tearing with some loss that doesn't matter. See the sleek curved of nylon and spikes, swaying like money, steps around holes, the cracks. Her head high at sculptured nose and legs split apart to welcome the inside business man, ah, the most successful. The little boy drops his ice cream cone, picks it up to brush and crush and flick the ants, and smash it on the neon window of a pawn shop with promise bargain signs. The man's guitar whines along the gutter. The lady brushes close around the child, white sticky cream sinks in worsted wool. Stains, just because of cautious walking, stink, disgusting thoughts that damage the journey beyond her sheltered own self. The fat man turns sideways in the crowd, head bowed and eyes the gummy, jaded ground watching shadows of cars and trucks with stick heads nosing through the red stop and screeching inside the group hustlers. The hustler points his toes to ruddy ruin at the blunt head stick and chrome cuffs to travel to urine and disinfected lines of bars. What could be strangles harshly on the concrete and ash of barrel fires smoking. The have something's float green slipstreams apart from responsibility with rationalized conscious building of another street to carry the misery, hopes and naked desires to old homes, and maybe, start over. Their easel paints in spit, blood and vomit, the falling and forgotten ventures that line the pockets of the coin catchers, the quick and ready for themselves. Suckers in the net and gasping in the dark air of good fortune. � 2000 DPMcClellan |
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