On a street painted with the steps
of the hurried and the dreaming, I am
a whisper among shouts. A child’s laughter
bursting like an air bubble, spiraling
in the beach’s splashing light.
An old man perches a storybook on a bench to etch
his face with tales deep as tree rings, padding
his worn trails. The love
he knew, now simmering—tea leaves
in the evening calm.
A woman darts by the bench—her conversation
a string of pearls lost to the wind. She wavers
on a tightrope of her own making. Squeezing
lemons into her schedule, I see her
spinning gold from her straw. Beneath
the canopy stretching its wide arms, roots
crochet stories into cobblestones.
Each passerby a brushstroke on the easel, easily
missed. Pale faces glowing
in the artificial light, life unfolding
in novels before them. A footnote
in the epic of the street, I bear witness
to the living scarves unwinding, each world
whipping around on its own axis, forever
a riddle, as we are.
