As I walk my beat at the corner of Bolsonaro
and Fifth, you pretend you don’t see me, but,
yo, I am there, bearing these boards fore and
aft advertising a fire sale in three-piece suits
At a Price You Can’t Afford Not to Buy! but
not a word, not a single word, about the fire
burning underfoot, as steam rises from man-
hole lids that thump whenever a bus or truck
goes over, like somebody’s trying to get out,
getting slow-cooked, but nobody has time to
stop the car, step out, lift the lid as the traffic
moves until it gets stuck again as tick by tock
the world runs out of time Closing Out! Last
Day! All Must Go! And that’s true too for me
for you, as steam blows the manhole lid high
above the intersection of Bolsonaro and Fifth,
and the heat underfoot is getting hotter, as if
the street’s on fire, and nobody can put it out
cuz nobody’s trying, later maybe but not now
as the red light at last turns rain-forest green,
giving busses, trucks, taxis, vans, you name it
the go-ahead to push the blue cloud farther on
down the avenue as here I stand advertising a
fire sale in men’s three-piece suits You Can’t
Â
Afford Not to Buy!, nobody stopping to take a
look down under where it keeps getting hotter
everyone in a hurry to get the hell out of town.
