He wakes to the thick breath of morning
in a room swaying soft with the dust of dreams—
his hand stumbles for a brush, but it’s not there,
only the feather,
fine and white as a pigeon’s plume,
whispering at his teeth,
scrubbing the night from his gums
until his mouth flutters clean.

Out the door, a haze of noise rises,
the street boiling over with bodies and shadows,
Grim Reapers with scythes strapped on their backs
and All Lives Matter stretched tight across their chests,
their skeletal fingers tearing signs from hands,
crushing the words into fists of smoke.
The crowd bends, breaks,
faces scattered like confetti in the heat,
the air chewing itself raw.

From somewhere deeper, a chant erupts—
"Don’t let them eat, don’t let them eat, don’t let them eat
your cats and dogs for meat!"
Boots stamping,
Sieg Heiling in sync,
the clatter of bones on concrete,
legs like metronomes to a dying clock.
He stumbles, the bile rising fast,
his stomach a twisted knot of dismay and disgust,
until he spews on the sidewalk,
a Jackson Pollock smear of breakfast,
watched by the grim-faced statues of authority.

They see him—
a flash of blue and badge,
tickets flicked from the pockets of their boredom.
For what? For the mess.
For littering the pavement
with what little was left of his gut.

His feet drag, shoes catching on cracked concrete
as he presses forward—
the store on the corner,
but the windows are blinded by plywood,
the "Open" sign drowning behind bars.
No one gets in, no one gets out,
and the street rolls on like a wound that won’t close.

He glances up, the sky shivering in its own skin,
clouds in colors they shouldn’t be—
pink bruises, green scars.
An owl watches from the power line,
blinking, its head spinning, spinning, spinning till it spins off.

He gathers a few feathers, pockets them, and heads home.