Street Corner

What she couldn't bear had come to rest on the skin of her eyelids. Passionless conversations. Routines. Her untouched core. Tossing her hair in the fine light as she walked the asphalt, she focused her eyes on decay. Ghosts of dinosaurs reared their heads from within bursts of light on glass, memories of lust lay composting in sidewalk cracks, broken hinges hung by single, dazzling screws. Peeling layers of paint, crusted rusty walls, piles of rotted flowers and leaves seized her imagination.

The man driving the bulldozer at the end of the block, whom she would meet today for the first time ever and who would, in time, join her under a woolen blanket, was intent on clearing a path, making something out of his destruction. He swerved the machine into a magnificant, jerking reverse. Cement crumbled. Bricks cracked. A sweaty steam rolled over his mind.

They veered toward one another.