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.