The orange hand is up a flat palm

The orange hand is up, a flat palm

telling me to stay right here

on the edge of the grease-slicked curb.

The plastic handle of the bag

is white where it’s stretching thin,

biting into my knuckles like a wire.

I’m looking down at the oil in the street,

where a digital 4 is shivering

in a rainbow of old gasoline.

I’ve spent half my life

waiting for a machine to say

it’s okay to move my feet.