(In)Sights From The Curb

Struggle and worry of a woman on a bring of shedding tears sitting on the stoop with her head slipping in her moist palms. As she calms no one notices her slight head bunt, a bruise on her left thigh. Did she fall, was she attacked? No one asks.

An old short gray-haired man in a suit wearing Asics and eating half-eaten blueberry muffin scribes on a clipboard with a golden-tipped fountain pen his story. His audience a young Indian woman in a fairly formal, floral-patterned dress nods along with each stroke of the man’s pen. The dress shirt waves his hands. Draws circles in the air to make a point. She keeps nodding along, with a slight smile. Neither laughs, and neither feels an attraction. Both are present to strike a business deal. So devoid of life.

I watch a puddle bubble undisturbed. Where do the bubbles come from?

When does the old become vintage?

Tall skinny thirty-something runs along the pavement blasting a 1980s power ballad from a tiny red speaker "I’ll never gonna see you again…” followed by a memorable saxophone solo.

A group led by the tallest of the three, a man smoking weed, unhinged throwing compliments at his buddies and strangers on motorcycles.

A man carrying a shopping basket looking for his way home passes by the same corner three times.

The calm street is interrupted by the loud turbocharged matt black darling of a shiny black darling.

Girlfriends couples and roommates discuss fake television lives, forgetting or perhaps avoiding talking about their own.

People graft memories on their bodies to forgive and forget.

An unbothered motorbike driver cigarette in one hand runs against the traffic, against the lights, against the crosswalk, against the rules.

A man on his phone waiting to get off and on with his day. He’s interested but bored with his parents telling him what he should do, knowing already he won’t even try.

Fluffy didn’t like being dragged by his human.

Black woman holding her head in migraine her hands picturesque with pink nails longer than a giraffe’s neck.

Man with Iowa borderline tattooed on his left leg.

A dark cloud looms in and has people asking if it will rain again.

All that while the birds watch from above, chirping in laughter over the human-run drama.