The Shopping Cart

And where have you not seen it? That strange wiry beast of burden, this errant link of urban evolution, cast into the city’s grim canals, or waiting by the ornamental creek in the square park, or beside a power pole at the edge of town, or in an alley under a glass tower, two, tipped on the marble stairs of the opera house, three, in the dark lot of the cathedral.

Everywhere, bent, broken, or loaded, like a merchant caravan: Old Spice and turpentine, Colt 45 and cooking wine, bolts of hospital blankets, a mountain of parkas, cardboard and iron, and a boom box crackling beside a shattered screen.

Cast your loving gaze upon the skeletal body, fed the shrink-wrapped consumables of Fifth Avenue, the waxed produce of neon markets, the never-enough of the great malls, then left in stalls, begging — flesh has never stuck to those ribs.

Feet that are ill-equipped for the long haul, yet there they are, tipped in a freeway ditch, far from the safety of Safeway, wrecked on the turnpike, or waiting on the shoulder of the thoroughfare, like a hearse out of gas.

Months lying under the overpass, their serenity is a marvel, a mantra of post-cultural residue, the Warhol paint of our displacement, the Nietzsche-esque lantern of our loneliness, closing hymn of the empire.

Shopping cart, a lonely sparrow, an owl in the wilderness, svelte vulture — eminent symbol of our civilization: let it replace the beaver, the coat of arms, the stars, the leaf upon our flag.

Sit with the flock at the shelter, or the gatherings at the gentrified gates, or the industrial pits, at the outskirts of the city. And when the wind is high and whistling through those heavy woven wires, listen to their stories. Maybe give one a meal, give one a home, give one some dignity.