Severed in twain
Richard Anderson

From his bowels to his black hair, he sits atop a filthy board and readies his fetid shell for another dance among our cars; we are temporarily halted at the light.

His once white shirt is forever stained with the ink of all that hovers a foot or less above the streets de la ciudad.

During his dance, in the time it takes the light to change, he wins three pesos discarded near his cup.

An empty cup, a tattered shirt, a splintered plank, he has nothing; he has no name, no past, no role, nothing; he is nada.

He is half a load of useless bricks lashed upon a homeless hod; he is half of nothing; he is invisible to all of us – even those of us who throw him coins.

His coins become chits of chaff the moment the idea of their departure crosses our minds; I give nothing; he gains nothing; nada se hace con nada; nothing comes from doing nothing.

His hands are his legs as he swings beneath the sight and souls of everyone; we glance down, but do not see him, as we cannot stand to let our eyes and minds and hearts commit and render real to us the fear of nothingness we cannot bring to bare.

He is now the empty void that grows in all of us who see him; by the growth of this new nada we become less, as does he.

His only satisfaction may be his knowledge that the void we cultivate within ourselves far surpasses his.

He adds us to his list of nada with his every dance through traffic, and with our thoughts of every coin, tossed or not, near his absent lap.

We now live a little closer to the very ground he slaps with every swing of his bowel-laden board; we join him and his nada on the streets de la cuiadad.

We do not talk, or blink or look away for each of us believes there is nothing beside us, but it will become something by our acknowledgement.

So with the changing light we drive ahead while the nada we think we leave behind us trails us, and finds us, and becomes us; it adds to our growing nothingness with every click we run.

11 July 2003
Mexico City