There is really no other place
to taste the sweet and sour of America,
to peel her layers back to reveal
the stunning and the ugly
and the middle point
where both beautifully blur.
Downtown sunrise, a blank page
waiting to be scribbled upon
or pressed hard against,
bleeding onto mornings after.
Smells of coffee and tar
mingle to the beeping
of machines operating in reverse.
The sidewalk
is full of cellular chatter
of phantoms unseen
who never utter a word in response.
Tall buildings confident
in their newness, never a downward glance
to the sagging two-story structures below.
Life here is perfect in its contrast,
as if the scene and its occupants
were randomly selected
for a blind experiment
on the psychology of city psychosis
or the sociology of metropolitan mania
that results in statistical significance
where deviation
is standard.

Its vary good!