After failing my real-life bus schedule quiz, I hoofed
the first of three miles to work along cracked and rising
sidewalks, other lives whizzing by only a few feet
away. I watched candy wrappers learn to fly and saw

a baby bird in a tiny patch of grass that must’ve tumbled
from a gutter-nest above. It was craning and crying and I
froze not knowing what to do. I was looking this tiny coming
death in the mouth and I could not stay to fend off hunger,

or predator or errant clumsy boot. I was a passing life
passing a life passing and I could barely take a breath. It was
ninety degrees and I had twenty minutes to close two miles
before my shift. I had to force my legs back into motion, had

to force the hollow in my throat to stay in my throat and not
to reach out to what was newly emptying alone in a crowded
noon.