running at dawn

One morning at dawn, at the top of the Woodland Street Bridge, I saw a homeless man in profile, pants pushed down around his knees, projectile diarrhea cascading from his bum into the bushes that border the Courthouse Plaza. He leaned on a shopping cart for support.

Is it?

Is he?

It is.

He is.

Dear God.

On my way home, I saw him again, pushing his shopping cart and drinking a grape Fanta. 

---

Outside the new convention center. I pass four men in hard hats, and I smile and say good morning. This goes on for a week, maybe two. And then one morning, one of the guys stands ceremoniously and offers me a bouquet of flowers. Not flowers he's bought, but ones he's picked. 

I don't take the flowers, because I have six miles to go and because then there would be a thing between us. And I would be bound to smile bigger and harder and be all oh, HI, it's you, "FLOWERS GUY".And this makes me wearier and angrier than I want to be at a nice man in a hard hat who has offered me flowers.

-- 

Again on the Courthouse Plaza: A guy who occasionally practices Tai Chi. I imagine he's thinking to himself, This. This is what it's all about. Just me and the stillness of the morning, and my deep centered thoughts, and my commitment to the ancient practice of Tai Chi. And a part of me thinks, good for him. While another part thinks, asshole showboat, will always be single. Can he not do that shit in his living room?

--

Yesterday: Just past the community center, I saw a dead squirrel. I tried not to look, but I always look.

Today. Same squirrel.

But!

Between his two front paws someone has tucked a yellow number two pencil. 

It is sick, and funny, and absurd, and beautiful.