the artists walk, in large part, unseen,
when they’re not crawling along
the pavement,
which crests and falls with the laughter of so many tectonic plates,
so many eviction notices ignored
painters, the lot of them,
but they will never tell you so
they’ve far too much doubt,
too much fear of death,
and far too little time to seize the laughter—so contagious to the crows
and their ****** spree
for shiny things of little, less consequence.