Digestive Disease Week 2006

Its digestive diseases week and people walk around downtown with purple satchels advertising medicines; they call this a convention.

I stand near the corner of Ninth and Figueroa, because this is where the buildings part enough to let the sunlight down. I think _ _ _ _ must be a digestive disease, and part of me wants to ask for a purple bag so I adverstise too. I watch the stilled machinery of gentrification, the large cranes, cement blocks and other expensive things. I think about heart and hurts and heart of hearts and hearts of hurt and Hallelujahs. The Los Angeles morning is whirring with anticipation, w-w-work that must be done. I am as still as the unused machinery across the street in the dirt lot where there will be a building one day. Crayola never named a crayon after Los Angeles blue sky morning, because even at its most brilliant there is something muted about it, like a breath that has been breathed too many times.

It’s 8:06 and I am now on company time. There is no time for hurts and hearts. I must begin to whir with the rest of them.