The high court, but honestly, pretty high in court

I felt the pain in the rag tag chain gang.
With my orange "Westside Community Court" vest,
people looked at me like I was the bane of society.
It shows the hilarity of life
that a minor violation, a petty crime,
can draw a line in the sandwith "us and them" intention.
A few of my wayward comrades
asked me what I was there for as we took in the filth
with trash grabbers.
My head blossomed with ideas
of what to tell them.
…
…
…
"Aggravated assault. I've got a lot of hours to fill up,"
I said,
wanting to burst out laughing!,
wanting to pull down the pants of strangers!,
wanting to run wild like a lunatic!,
wanting to pull a practical joke rivaling itself!

If I can make jokes that only I will find humor in,
I think I am alive and well at last.

I kept my face straight, and they nodded. Some explained their crimes.
Some of them:
speeding tickets,
minor violations,
public indecency,
disturbing the peace of our streets.

For the pavement,
it is serene.

It is filled with
cigarette butts empty lighters fliers gum broken glass old newspapers
and severed Christmas light wires.

The demographic is as wide and unpredictable
as the things we find in the muck:
addicts students unknowns lawyers transients politicians teachers liars lovers
maybe even a handful of celebrities
maybe even Joe the plumber.

All of them -
dirty
dirty
dirty
dirty
dirty
just like me.

We shot the shit while we picked up Portland's feces.
We talked about police brutality.
We talked about the basketball game last night.
We talked about how the Christmas light wires were telltale signs of junkies,
using them to tie off
and subsequently shoot up.

A middle aged guy
from eastern Oregon
but living and working on Southeast Foster
bought me breakfast during our break.

He was nearly halfway through his community service hours.
I asked him what his hours were for
and he told me that he got in trouble for talking to a lady.
I was puzzled.

He then told me that a "friendly looking woman",
near 82nd and Johnson Creek was smiling and waving at him,
so he stopped and talked to her.
He said he was charged for attempting to pick up a prostitute,
but all he was doing was talking to her.

"Just talking, only talking. That's crazy isn't it, man? It's so stupid, I mean I got arrested for talking to somebody. It's fucked up, right?"

He was speaking really fast
tripping over his words.

His jowls transformed into
vibrating lunchmeat, and in that one moment,
those billowing curtains of ham made me want to go home and sleep.

I said, "Yes, that is very fucked up," not really wanting to talk about it anymore
although it sounded to me like he was very much trying to do the dirty.

Guilty as charged.

It looked to me like he might beone of the lonelier ones.
Melted and charred
by whatever it was that made
his suffering

solitary and
horny.

From then onthe day blended into itself.
Walking, walking, talking,
walking, walking, raining,
raining, raining, dripping

except for an apology from an ex-lover ripped into a dozen pieces
scattered on the ground in front of me.
I could see the anger invested in
the purposeful tears in the letter.

I carefully, caressingly
picked up each piece like a fossil
with my metal & plastic garbage arm,
putting them together, reading the words.

The rage of destroying memory
made sense to me.
I felt a bond with those who bury the pain and the
insincere apologies with hate shovels,
all the while thinking that those who have wronged us so profoundly
give us nothing to keep our backs straight.
I felt little more than bad blood shared
with the one who cast me into the quarry,
forcing a fleeting smile and thinking that commonality
catches us in the strangest places.