From The Balcony of an Office Building

White Styrofoam peanuts fluttering across the parking lot, broken glass, empty cat food tins, Tupperware. It’s difficult to breathe here. A low-rider pick-up truck with hand spray-painted gray and purple flames or waves. Holes of construction to the east, dust storms in the unoccupied and graveled spaces. Afternoon lets you know that today is like yesterday is like tomorrow. The ribbon of freeway on stilts, the hoods of passing cars, buses, trucks. Afternoon lets you know that purity was just a promise of Morning. Lunch makes one tired. The builders have gone home for the day; the wind picks up its strength and empowers narcoleptic sunlight.