"her glasses kept the world from
slamming into her too hard as she dived into into: lakes of people flitting --
down sidewalks and across streets in front of behind around
buildings and floating through parks darting across roads and shooting out alleyways

crawling into cafes-- with lifeless eyes cold bodies brushing against one another in a sea of; drifting in a current up





down



left and right feeding on cigarette butts

and empty coke cand and packing soiled

napkins into briefcases; sucking up burnt pennies on the sidewalk roadkill; the empty cups rat-tat-rattling the empty stomachs rattling
empty hearts rattling


souls


rattling -- her feet scraped the bottom of it all





and she pushed off cut up- wards like a knife-rocket she took a deep breath and drowned.