manjula martin

Do you consider leaving this all. All this behind? Squalor or the snap. Glance of a corner, teenage telephone pole pocked stapled to
rained-out corners of long-past flyers. They're building.
Cement blocks guard with chainlink fence. Then the plywood. Bluegrey erected, in patchwork, squares of slightly different heights,
the way we sew in counties, rooms. Layered samplers seal sites. Upward too, pavements the leaks the subterranean smell the water.
Green dirt or moss of lapsed building permits. But a porch.

Walk by a man on a corner. Miss him. The tiles still crack on the stairs
to the guest house. Where sunsets never look like this.


Manjula Martin lives in San Francisco. She works as an editor and studies writing and music and some other stuff at Mills College. Her kitchen is pink and her previous publication credits include Post Road magazine. She, like everyone else, has a blog (link to http://www.scenesfromthenext.blogspot.com )