Two Scavengers In a Truck and Two Beautiful People In a Mercedes

Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes At the stoplight waiting for the light nine a.m. downtown San Francisco a bright yellow garbage truck with two garbage men in red plastic blazers standing on the back stop one on each side hanging on and looking down into an elegant open Mercedes with an elegant couple in it The man in a hip three-piece linen suit with shoulder-length blond hair & sunglasses The young blond woman so casually coiffed with a short skirt and colored stockings on the way to his architect's office And the two scavengers up since four a.m. grungy from their route on the way home the older of the two with grey iron hair and hunched back looking down like some gargoyle Quasimodo And the younger of the two also with sunglasses & long hair about the same age as the Mercedes driver And both scavengers gazing down as from a great distance at the cool couple as if they were watching some odorless TV ad in which everything is always possible And the very red light for an instant holding all four close together as if anything at all were possible between them across that small gulf in the high seas of this democracy