rub

Playing a guitar on a busy corner, raising my palm from the sidewalk for alms, clicking my Jimmy Chou's from shop to shop, stuffing a hurried bite into my mouth between meetings, bumping/brushing/passing in haste - I am late for life, too early for dinner, just a moment behind the flipping of the sign at the dry-cleaner's door, readjusting my book-bag on the way to class, wrapping a hand knit scarf a little tighter about my neck, flipping through tracks on an ipod that drowns out the honks, the slurs, the hiss of compression breaks, and the clatter of my neighbor digging through the trash.

It's in the breath that hits my neck when we're packed onto the metro, in the smile of a stranger, and the persistence of the boy hocking key chains/watches/necklaces/cigarettes in the park. It's the sign for "Live, Nude Dancing Girls" hanging next to a mosque, temple, church, theater. It's the restaurant where no one can get a table and the coffee shop where everyone sits 'round the same table, listening to the same bad angst, from that person who always seems to be first in line on open mic night.

Anonymous - lost in the jumble of pedestrians, cars, buses, street vendors, lights, shadows, piles of garbage, community gardens, playgrounds, lofts and shelters. When I can smell the restaurant down the street, see a person peeing outside of a posh club, taste the liquor that hides in a paper bag, hear the music of three different troubadours in one block, and rub shoulders with socialites, transients, businessmen, and college students while walking down one street - I am changed.