fifty-seventh

Tomorrow a new Whole Foods opens a block up from my work.  I pass it every day and have watched it complete.  But today!  Whole Foods' Eve, I suppose.  A crush of activity, inside and out.  Cement workers listen in disbelief to their foreman as he tells them what they're going to rip out, pour, smooth and replace today, just outside.  Carpenters with long grey beards and (carpenter's) pencils stuck over their ears, cutting wood for last adjustments to the check-out counters.  A line of trucks, with drivers perched in their cabs, as amused as me, waiting, watching the hive of activity, taking it all in.  Stacks of empty boxes and scraps that, for once, dwarf the big garbage trucks waiting to haul it all away.  Everyone on the ground with "Hello my name is" tags on their tshirts, somebody's idea of bringing order - or at least identity - to the mass of effort.  Shopping carts, unscratched chrome shining, with blue protective plastic still clinging to new grips.  Potted orchids, already in place, stems trembling in the blow of an air conditioning vent.