Rush Hour

                              A human thicket fills sidewalks

                              and crosswalks as glass towers

                              deflect early morning light.

                              The swarm of suburb commuters

                              sweep me through shadows

                              of a skyscraper jungle.

                              In the search for my destination,

                              I walk with strangers as they go to work.

                              In the crowd we become human cells

                              seeking our places in the body of the city,

                              starting and stopping to traffic lights,

                              and The Loop pulses with morning life

                              of those seeking their fortunes,

                              the great city arranging itself

                              around those in its possession.

                              A car turns right and brushes its way

                              through a throng in the crosswalk,

                              another incidental contact in the pattern of life.

                                                                        --Mike Bayles

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