CHRISTMAS music is piping 

through the downtown air 

days after the flooding, 

many half-blocked streets recently re-oiled,

people sleeping 

under the awnings of buildings, 

mud-ruined sleeping bags 

tossed on corners 

beside bunches
of rental scooters. 

Apartment residents come out of doors 

with dogs on leashes,

walk past corners and windows, 

fences, scaffolds, boarded-up buildings-- 

which
are flood repair,
which new construction? 

There’s no way to tell. 

Dirt and buildings aren’t opposites, 

reflect each other in different conditions, 

flood leads to commerce, 

commerce creates new 

pathways for flooding 

motion tuned for profit 

            treats itself as the foreground 

                                                             of its own rubbish, 

                                     tosses people like rubbish 

                                     or puts them to work, 

                                                 pillows and backpacks on sidewalks,
                                                  hard hats on heads. 

Come use me, the Christmas 

                                    music pipes, 

            surround yourselves with the things I make 

                                    and you will know
                                    yourselves in me, 

                        vast playground of dirt and in it, 

                                                fortress of dollars, perpetual spinning 

                                    Rows of lightshows
                                    tease the mind 

                                                to let us know 

                                                which parts of ourselves 

                                                to value, which parts 

                                                to throw out.