Worse Things Fall From the Sky

The parking guard was picking his nose again,
mining for some ancient truth buried
in the folds of his skull. His stiff fingers
dislodged the nugget and held it for a moment,
like a tiny secret he couldn’t decide
whether to share or keep. Then, with a flick,
it sailed off and landed on the stray cat
stretched across the hood of a beat-up sedan.
The cat blinked once, utterly indifferent.
I guess it had seen worse things fall from the sky.

Spring had touched the street, but the guard
seemed even more out of place than last week,
as if he’d been sewn into the morning sideways.
His grumpiness felt out of season,
and he knew it.

“If nobody pays attention, does the story still get told?”
I asked, though I wasn’t sure if I was talking
to him, the cat, or myself.

The guard wiped his hand on his pants
and stared down the street, his eyes
fixed on something far away. The buildings
piled up in the distance, jagged and uneven,
forming the shape of a mountain
that no one else noticed.