Saturation Point

The truck didn't slow for the curb.

Now the canvas of my shoes is a heavy, cold skin

clinging to the arch of my foot.

I am standing under three feet of Plexiglas

while a man in a windbreaker tries to catch my eye

like we are sharing a secret instead of a delay.

I look at the asphalt instead.

The gasoline has leaked out into the wet

making a flat, oily rainbow in the gutter.

It’s a toxic kind of beautiful,

the sort of color that only happens

when something clean gets ruined by the road.