Sliding to the First day

It is summer, and the umbrella men are selling hotdogs. A good-looking priest enters Saint Pat's, gangly young ladies giggle, make the sign of the cross. Thursday is AllYouCanEat pizza day the joint will be too crowded, too poky, the pizza rushed out, slapped and pasted. Office workers, those that take medicinal weed, come flocking from the second floors of nowhere, shoulder to shoulder, they huddle to spread petty scandals and rumors, then return to stare at desktop computer games. **** is the privilege of the underachievers. Downtown is slip-sliding, it used to be a place to be noticed, a sex-gated area for outdoor passions. Now the females hold the hem of their skirts down, and not because of the wind. Dope is in the air. Thieves scrabble and push, dazed by the easy abundance. Tourists duck and shelter under dead teachers' desktops. Come December, the glass ball will hang by a thin fingertip.