And the blood burbled out
Dribbled down
Stained his shirt.
He dropped down hard head
Smacked the soot stained sidewalk
Shook loose slammed beneath the city street throng.
I did not see the moment
But I heard the sound of bone on concrete
Sprawling arms convulse then still.
Under brutal baked and cruel city sun
That said
There might not be tomorrow.
And the blood burbled out
While the circles of cell phones rose to attention
Then a slow motion time staccato crowd moan
And the yips and yaps of blind and impotent orders being given
“Be careful!”
“Don’t move him!”
“Give him room!”
“Just be careful!”
Then finally the siren.
Coming in an instant that felt like forever.
Then came the siren
Ripping through the heat
Life a razor honed knife through melted butter.
Here they come
The social safety net.
And with a lumbering certainty
Lights flashing parting seas
They disembark
Take positions
Checking vitals
Street science saviors seeing more
than the rest of us
Making the decision
He was alive enough to move.
Faded Hawaiian shirt, blood stained knees and a missing shoe
He looked like a worn out wandering beach boy
Gone too long from a sad distant ocean
Swallowed by the city
Dirty blond hair, and shocked grey eyes
Dreams of summer waves and a smiling surfer girl.
While those resolute plodding street science saviors
Secured their new charge
Lifted up the sleeping beach boy
That man and that woman who are the social safety net
Lifted him high
Above the glass cracked baked and tired Chicago sidewalk.
Slid him in their wailing flashing chariot
And I wondered if there’d be someone worrying
When the cracked head bloody beach boy
Did not make it back on time
Tonight.
https://youtu.be/PeJkbSi0vMA