imperfect shot.

In Oakland, the birds perch in Satanic pentagrams,
behind buildings, only when your camera is a cell phone.

If I had an SLR, they would have flown.


In front, two men speak with iridescent cadence; valor.
Glints of teeth stained with age and caffeine poke through sable mouths,
all the while behind, a woman complains of potholes, the inauguration
of our first black president, the cold.

Identities obscured, public transit.
A tittering laugh masks such fury.