Market Street

Beneath big buildings
full of commerce
and the manufacturing of realities
street sweepers cast the bristles of their brushes into
broad unending ciphers
that dig deep into black asphalt
throwing trash
into the green certified vacuum powered
mouth of the machine.

abandoned coca cola bottle
swept away
fallen leaves, a knapping pauper, a child’s lost mitten,
a prostitute-or-poet-or-mother
a scrap of unidentifiable paper,
a vagrant, M & Ms,
that boy I cruised moments ago,
spent cigarette butts,
and other discarded and sundry annoyances
cleaned-up

beneath the stars and stripes
fluttering in the wind
atop the big commerce making buildings
that preside over United Nations Plaza
where Universal Human rights were declared
right outside of Carl’s Junior

a street sweeper casts omnipotent bristles
into the asphalt
to remove brilliantly black, brown, urban, hip-hop,
trash
that the commerce makers
from the tall, important, reality constructing buildings
are too big
to be bothered
to step over
on there way to BART