Behind the Bus Station

Behind the bus station a crowd stands in the lot around a shopping cart on its side. The man taking it apart has a sunburned neck and very clean hands. His duffel bag, marked D.A., and a cardboard tube lean on the fence.

He takes the basket off with a wrench and bolts the chrome bars into a frame. A bicycle wheel with the tire gone comes out of a dumpster, a coffee can of bottle caps out of a tote bag, a crate of rinsed jars from a van. Hands hold out each thing before he asks.

On an upturned crate stands a lamp made of drawer handles. People take turns singing to it. It comes on for a man who can sing and, a little late, for a woman who can't. A girl at the back holds a thumb to her watch, and a ghost begins to sing, thin and level. She turns her wrist toward her and the voice climbs, and the lamp comes on. She lets go, and it hushes.

Between wrenches the man looks up at a planter built of cubes on a bus shelter's roof, and writes in a notebook.