A single row, a ditch, a line
left to cross. It’s another Saturday

morning. Time to turn the soil
while waiting for the coffee

to kick in. No misery lights
are sweeping across the intersection.

A stranger cries out:
“You can’t run from death.”

You keep going up
the hillside in a city park.

You never wait
your turn. You take turns

being the antihero. Strapped
to a beat-up guitar, one of you busks

on a corner in perfect view
of a garden-level apartment

window well. The other sweeps
the margins clean

at the end of the night.
Underwater watchdogs swim ashore

before the next broken wake.

You always find a gem
of a word to mispronounce.