Josh Adler, Philadelphia

On the way to the place where America turns, flags bear crosses and confederacies. Signs spiel ungodly surrender, while lady liberty crops a spiky eye towards her state’s unwavering way.

These rando pickup places (between the dead flag poles, and melting magazines crouched over mailboxes like Sunday hats) are my fave.

At the doorway it’s time for a delivery. Are the neighbors unpacking or packing? They’re backing in, but will they deliver? Who’s ship is this?

Around the back of Tasker St. the summer jobs are fists awaiting repair from solid air. The air is packing heat all the way to the crash.

Officers stand on every corner. Every. Dreaming to watch from a stoop, or hear the twinklings of sanguine speeches after dark. Backpackers launch across empty lots spelled out by the bouquet graffiti. Their steps hold the wind like illegible confetti. Stranded?

The bus kneels, rises, kneels and rises. It’s a ship. It’s a ride. It’s a sale. Convention. It’s eyes down. It’s sanitation. It’s a right turn.

It’s a girl wavering on a steely bike in the heat.

Legs churning, churning. She is an auxiliary liberty pedaling through liberty independent of virtue’s mall. A Philly dream shop in search of shade. She is a left turn, a triple take. She is a sign, a building. She peddles. The hemline of what’s to come.