Alan Soldofsky: Late Days
Again, the sky is skinless. This morning when the wind swirls it shreds apart molecules of fog, funneling what mist remains toward the beseeching mouths of grass. The clouds no longer remember to bring rain. Thus, smoke rises beside the freeway from behind a construction site ringed by encampments where the unhoused house themselves under camo-colored tarps. The rest of their day is given to anything that can remove the pain, that’s branded inside their hearts. Gusts rattle the palms, stripping away fronds that now litter the roads, and a downed power line like a rubbery black worm, one end split down to its plaited hot aluminum core. Whose conscience is clear seeing those dismal, flammable outposts sequestered behind a half built or half dismantled apartment block, like a human wrecking yard, where so many of us come to give up finding spare parts needed to make repairs?
Copyright 2022 Alan Soldofsky
Alan Soldofsky is the author of In the Buddha Factory (Truman State University Press, 2013). He teaches at San Jose State University where he directs the MFA program in Creative Writing. He lives in San Jose.
Vox Populi 
Lineare, pulita, perfetta; bella.
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