Catalytic Converters

Night, when the library’s too small,
Although you’ll never read it all.
That terrible search for a text

That might have what you want. Next. Next.
What are you really reading for?
Someone else’s language or yours?

You’re a thief in a parking lot
Lurking in your shadowy spot,
Waiting for the right kind of car

To be parked, where it’s mostly dark,
By the right kind of driver, one
Who doesn’t bother with the locks,

Who’s barely walked off and you’re blocks
Down the road to your own chop shop.

Return

The parking garage
Was all but empty,
A bit of grey light

From the day poking
Through grating to mix
With the fluorescents.

No one was walking
To the few parked cars.
Scattered dead leaves swirled

Against the concrete
Corners, having been
Blown through the stairwells.

To be a person
In a human place
When there aren’t any

Other people there
Is a kind of grace.
Immediately,

Despite the concrete,
Fluorescence, and grates,
Immediately,

It isn’t human.
Immediately,
It’s back to being.