FLAGPOLE [Esther Shipsey] I smell bread and asphalt cooling. Midsummer, 5:45 PM. Kind of afternoon makes you forget some sunsets end by now, midday downtown swelter toned down to the temperature of skin. Scored the last bagel sandwich. Kicking down to the rendezvous, Emma’s scooping me any minute. I light up. There’s an old man, bent back, wobbly-legged. I know the script but can’t stick to it. This close to Denver Rescue Mission that costs me. I don’t mind the giving; it’s the need I can’t take. “Scuse me,” I hear, and I’ve got a little pang of the Other Discomfort, the fear that’s a mirror. “Scuse me, miss, I don’t mean to bother you, I just need a few dollars, you know, few … a few dollars, get me sumna eat, can you spare? Please, miss? Just a dollar or—” And I hand him like seven, my singles, flush with tips. He thanks me like I hung the sun, calls me an angel. The haze cracks, splits, bangs, flashes; you felt it. I’m already facing the sound, and see the man shoot off the concrete as if struck from inside. Electric gut-shot. A ripcord top popping off tarmac. He lands, whirls back round to me. “Vietnam!” He cries like the place is strangling him. I notice his embroidered veteran hat. He is Black. I put it together. “Those are fireworks, sir. I think they’re testing them.” He looks down, left, right, back, forth, disbelieving. “It’s the Fourth of July, sir. You’re in Denver, Colorado. It’s 2017.” He faces me again. “I don’t like it when they do that!” I offer a cigarette. Give him four. He acts like I’m his birthday, daughter, and graduation. When I ask where he’s sleeping, he jabs two fingers downward, hard. “Here. The street.” Stupid question. When he turns, the flag on his back is bleached to sunshine, coral, and sky. 7 PLAINS paradox