The air is clear except for the dust
from the building going up, one of many
around here. The workers are busy
with talk of the weekend; who got some,
or didn’t, and who won the big game.

It was all the same each Monday
like alarm clocks stopped
and Lucky Charms zip locked,
pushing kids out the door.
You could see it on the second floor
in the unit with no windows yet,
beside the one where a carpenter
sets the studs, where a man will throw darts
till the wall chips, and he’s evicted,
and someone new moves in.
Plays music all night. Maybe Mahler.
Maybe Madonna. He hasn’t decided.

No one will sleep. The cats of the alley
will creep in the bushes till sunlight
comes. Then they’ll stretch
on the cement—not there long before
cattle grazed and water went ways it supposed,
and man followed with thoughts
of only those things that kept him going.