It’s cooler on the shady side of the street where I am. The lady on the radio said zero humidity for the next few days.

The butt picker is in top form, stooping and selecting the juiciest moist discards in front of the laundromat flicked from the participants of the suicide long game.

With no regard for health or pandemic he lights and sucks, feeding that addiction I remember like a distant movie with actors I don’t recall.

Coffee is the only addiction I currently feed. It’s been this way for a while now. A man collecting beer cans passes by me at the cafe and I think of poorer times in a not so distant past and realize, but for the grace of God, there go I.

And my mind drifts to childhood… long ago and far away.