As if nostalgia means you did not die

Cataracts grow and spread over the old bark
Blurred vision, like the fading; faded double yellow lines
Along the road uphill.

A man rushes past, with the winds at his
underarms, climalite heavy with perspiration
Philippino maid with a basket of limp veggies
heading toward madam's kitchen

She sees the cooking cleaning washing laundry;
messy beds of tomorrow's children
in every ray of the evening sun.

Provoking the pedestrians they shun
under the miserly shade of thin, bare trees the
gahment sends dark workers - melanine in their sleeves
- shift jack chop the hard grown branches fall

nobody to witness its contact with the ground except
the unforgiving cement and its
army of insects living on the outskirts:

white algae continues to cloud our judgement.

CHARMAINE CHAN 020309