navigating on his own
hundred proof discouragement,
70 percent alcoholic
frame, clutching a fine backpack
filled with holey socks, smudged shirts,
scavenged pants, and a single
checkered bandanna, to keep dirt sweat
from oozing down his forehead,
like a saline mudslide.
he calls out gruffly, but
without menace, to grunting joggers,
aloof cabbies, alien yuppies,
a primal scream of a desolate dream,
far more than the average:
"anything green works."
repeated, omlike, outside of
city burger, where
meat-maddened pilgrims line up
like calves heeding the slaughter.
repeated, omlike, outside of
the tattered cover, where
book-bent fanatics line up
like trees expecting the chipper.
navigating, still,
on his own
hundred proof discouragement,
70 percent alcoholic
frame, feet inviting blisters
as they pace all around
in found flip-flops.
he calls out gruffly, but
without menace, to booming buses,
giddy strollers, smirking convertibles,
a primal scream of a desolate dream,
far more than the average:
"anything green still works."
repeated, omlike, outside of
axum, where
injera-itching devotees line up
like wheat-chaffs awaiting the sickle.
repeated, omlike, outside of
twist and shout, where
record-ready worshippers line up
like vinyl expecting the needle.
he calls out, more gruffly,
wobbling tall on his own
hundred-proof discouragement,
the shelter is completely full tonight
and all the benches
on this slutty stretch of colfax
are taken, and all he knows how to do
is to make a cardboard mattress
atop spilled soda concrete.
