PRISM (of)

We are in a courtyard
Floral
Bright dancing colors
Like excited eyes
Surrounded by a virgin white fence
Smoking cigarettes
With a heavy gloom
Over our heads
You say
“She wants to see me again,
And after all these years.”
I nod
And dream
If I could be so lucky
To have a second chance
At distant scents
That retouch old photographs
We acknowledge
“People are boring”
We wonder
“Is this all there is?”
Then a sound
Tiny thunder
Outside our quiet paradise
Just over the virgin white fence
A shopping cart over beaten pavement
Two men
Hauling death black garbage bags
Full of aluminum cans
One yells to the other
“You think it’s free to live here?”