Mission Street
by Peter Leroe-Muñoz
Behind laminated glass and side airbags from some or other German town, I wait for green and watch. A mother wedges her son’s stroller against a sidewalk hydrant and claws at the teddy bear he dropped in a churning sewer grate.
Above the pair, June fog smears gray. A courtesy of the weather to dim the afternoon embarrassed by alleys spotted with used diapers and sidewalks brittle with chicken bones.
I wave at the boy. He sees and raises five knuckled-sausages, aims one at me and pulls the trigger. His wet giggles chase me through the intersection.
The bullet misses but follows to my porch. I plead with the lock and breathe again on the hallway Afghan, leaving mother and child stranded between the Tudor cladding and cream-colored roses.
Peter Leroe-Muñoz is a poet living and writing in the San Francisco Bay Area. His previous work has been published by Modern Haiku, The Rumen, Fool’s World, The Garfield Lake Review and Asahi Shimbun in Japan.