arriving home at sunset

it was a joke:
we are a 501(c)3 negative-profit organization
and we need your money so that we can
grind ourselves to dust but not disappear
so that kira can go home at night
and not cry because the people she loves
are tense in their shoulders, faces, laughs
about going hungry for the things that matter

i am driving home in a car with a cracked bumper
and a breaking axle, and
the crack will turn one-year-old soon, and
the axle will snap, and
i am thinking "who did this to the world," and
the black woman by the side of the road
holds a cardboard sign that says "anything helps," and
i drive past her and consider giving my last quarter
but it seems too small
and then she is in the distance

later
as i mount the hill whereon i live
an orange sun meets me and shoots up gold
rays across my windshield,
reggaeton falls onto the warm road from above,
the dust of a springtime afternoon
caught up in the sun and the music and the rattle of my dying car
and upstairs, my room smells like summer salads
and firewood
and i think again "who did this to the world"
because nothing so horrible should be so sweet