overpass man

hunched over gold trimmed edges
leather bound book          open to marked page
under the over pass          I-three nine five
shopping cart between body and street
plastic bags tied along metal frame
hint of cigarette stench          curling
odor of sweat          highway          exhaust
reading to the hum          drizzle of dim lights
hunched over gold trimmed passages
leather bound book          dog eared pages

map

today

3 hours south,
light in my eyes

I shifted the visor
at every turn

but sun shone
relentlessly taking
refuge from my defenses
at the corner of the windshield
impossible corner
sun shining

95
495
13
1
301
50
95
495
1

just off jeff davis
daylight fading

137

tonight

Construction on I95? Sure I'm down

The gasoline orange-yellow sun
awakens over tired pilots
sipping coffee
and phasing out
the low hum of a song
carried over radio waves
to work stations
and mistranslated lives,

the one perpetual failure of man
is the north bound bridge on I95
running over the Girard Point Bridge,

Old graying war machines rest
tired underneath, a slumber forced
upon aging metal bones,
in pretend-memory
full of vigor and violence,
now slouched into creaking recliners
and stuffed with catheters,
waiting for unrecognizable dinners
and sunset futures.