DEMENTIA
The long line of bodies and heads, pressed to the road. Flat up against the curb, sneakers edging out, humanity jutting into the street. Soft middles, genitals, knees. Heads bent, turning, forward, turning again, forward. This is what a cattle line looks like, flat against the feed-troughs, waiting for it to all trickle down. Hearing it in the pipes, training their long necks up and tracking the sound. Down, tracking iii iiiitttt ttttt down.
Police line, bike cruisers. Waiting at the red, red comes off, green, going with the light; cruising for the turn, turning, hearing radio fragments, tinny little sounds: man on foot, axxxuxxe, man on foot.
Wailing red car. Something nice, flat. Flat like the back of your hand. Lights in the back, stuck out bright and red. Red circle, red circle, license plate, red circle, red circle, air, air, air (beginning the same way—air—and below the red circles ground). Hitting the pedal. It’s stop and go. He’s in neutral and doesn’t know how to use it or—pedal, pedal, loud sound. Pedal, the sound is loud. He shatters the air space. An echo sound bomb. Bouncing off concrete, brick. He puts his car into gear. He goes, so fast, he thinks. He goes, so fast, his revving into wheel power, he goes. And stops at the next light. Where he revs again. And reminds.
Hey, I can drive this thing. Hey, I can waste this fuel, I can drive this thing.
I drive this thing. You drive— what? Let me goooo.
Letting myself believe he lives at the corner, at the end of Queen. That inbred shit-rich community. ‘You walk my unsidewalked streets? Get out, you’re poor’. Driving to his dick house, his ugly wife, his kid and scowl.
