This city has a casual conscience.
The heat has a hand down the back
of your shirt and it's close, too close
for comfort or sex because it's all just sweat,
anyway.
You'd wipe it away but there goes your cool.
Don't admit you need the breeze; don't admit
your place. You are one of the privileged and they
know it.
The street reeks of smoldering plastic, rotting food, shit,
waste on fire. Smoke rises in toxic columns along
every tarmack track where the black
burns.
People walk like there's a beat, in sways and arcs
and always swing
too
slow.
You won't look back in ten, twenty years
because that's for happy thoughts.
But when you catch a whiff of
something burning,
it will look back on you.
Jenny Williams is a UC Berkeley graduate turned folklore groupie and songwriter, recently returned from a two-year trip through the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Her work has appeared in Matador Travel, Pology, and Ethical Traveler.