The only desert within our means.

One evening not long ago, while walking through the park I saw an old man in clean shirt and slacks pull up to the curb and calmly walk over to a young tree. He leaned down and scooped his grocery bag full with mulch, then placed the bag into his trunk and drove down the street.

Yesterday afternoon I watched a woman crouching in the thick heat and following a pigeon as it hopped along the sidewalk, she trying to pour water onto it out of a plastic bottle.

This morning I listened to the basement dwellers beneath me argue about something that got lost as words progressed, becoming a drone about the other's persistent argument and nag, both voices sharing the perfect moaning characteristic.

And I sit beneath a ceiling fan, watching its strings push, my little one flopping over in his sleep and letting out his little dog groan. Holding a book and alone in this apartment, I miss my lips and spill coffee on my shirt with no one to see.