man downstairs

There is a man standing downstairs. He has been there since last night at 1:28 a.m. I am sure because that is when I was walking home. Last night he was guarding the levelized rubble in front of the new condo they have put in. Today he is guarding a wet patch of cement the size of two elephant backs, the size of one hotel swimming pool on the stingy side, the size of my large brick bedroom in front of the new condo building they have put in. Next to the crack house with the hotel sign and the worn down patch of astroturf laid out like an unwanted sacrifice at the invisible door. He guarded it last night when a sleek brown rat tumbled out of the rocks at my feet and ran into a black symmetrical crack beneath the block-propped foundation. He guards it today as we, linked and strolling out for coffee, consider slapping our outside hands down into the impressionable mud and running off immortalized.

I love you.

How are you paid?

You wear a messy broken hat and a clean plaid shirt. Some flecks of drying cement on your face? I think, with the job you have, and the people walking by, and the hazard of assholes, that you should have been (it's too late now) given a uniform.

Little bit of mess everywhere.