“First Friday in Indianapolis” by Dan Grossman

First Friday in Indianapolis

In the Circle City Industrial Complex
I came across Channel 8 videographer,
Joy Hernandez, on her lunch break.
She was at the counter at the Full Circle 9 Gallery

as a patron walked up to buy a painting 
of hers, of Bean the Astronaut.
Crowds poured through the gallery space.
No one wore masks. 100 years ago,

in the wake of another pandemic,
Louis Schwitzer designed the first six-cylinder 
engine in this building; he pioneered 
the collapse of distance across time and space.

I walked upstairs to the gallery that bears
Schwitzer’s name. I got lost in the multitudes.
Stepping back outside for fresh air
I filled my lungs, surrounded by acres of cars.

This poem was published in Dan Grossman’s collection Mindfucking Roundabouts of Carmel, Indiana