The market street screamed in a thousand voices
the foul flatulence of noisy metallic cases
and pulverized city garbage hung in the air,
forming a layer on my palate
and cakes on my lips.

I walked, looking at the neon signboards
and well-lit show windows of
the shops that ran endlessly while walked myself
to a rising tiredness.

Where the footpath is drenched in darkness
in the quarters of light,
beside the wall around a vacant lot
under a tree that has grown to peep over the wall
and look at the market across---
when it burns suffocatingly with the friction of money
changing hands,
when it lies quiet, like a midnight hospital ward,
when it yawns awake---
I almost stepped on him.

Before the first shiver
of sudden scare had dissipated
(for I have always been afraid of dogs,
and more of stepping on sleeping ones),
I caught in a second look;
a child who slept
with his cheek on the pavement.