Under an overpass, a sleeping bag is shaped
like an upside-down U as it drapes over a
shopping cart, containing shirts, pants, boots,
and bags of bottles. Dripping from
the bag, water puddles. His dog drinks.
A man leans against his basket. He peers
through the U that he forms with his thumb
and four fingers. He watches the rain
falling outside the bridge. Do the dandelion
blooms at the curb’s edge bore him?
No one dreams of inverting the bridge into
an ark’s U-shaped vessel for the homeless.
Opening his toothless mouth in a scream,
he yells, “You, you, you” at the traffic,
and the cars pass him slow and unstoppable.
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