10 AM on Market Street

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Fog lingers longer these mornings, filling

the grid’s vacancies, keeping street-

signs obliterate.

Walking to the bus stop, you feel your categories

close in, encircle, when what you want

is their convergence.

You cross, on the way, numerous sheepdogs

chasing singularities into herds.

Bus lines, coffee refills,

toll booths dinging attendant-absented,

though you admittedly prefer this

impersonality now.

Downtown’s rife with tactile loss: no pocket cash,

no receipts, no recipient. Everything’s

brought to touch

within the cloud, and the cloud obliviates

accidental touching. There’s air

trapped in the double-

paned curtain walls & in its shifting shadow-box,

some grey mornings, you glimpse your I —

a ghost margin traced along

your body’s passing. Where, then, but

into the proliferating mirrors to go?