Wanderer

 

19 January 2022

Light assumes morning

Morning assumes the light, with

Or without a you

The man on the bus

Has been grieving twenty years

Grief generating

Grief as he wanders

Accumulating debts of

Anger--a kind of

Wonderment--he hates

Vegas, hates grifters, voices

Embarrassment for

Us; the masks are now

Real, unmetaphored: Cover

Nose and mouth, driver

Says, drifting back to

See young man with a neck brace

Hospital bracelet

 

As one row in front

A bearded man says something

To me with his eyes.

The man so burdened

By his sanity hands me

Auden’s dive bar poem

“There’s no affirming

Flame now,” he says, no one looks

At you behind those

Things (artifice for

Flame), Achilles shield a smart

Phone, with payment apps

It starts to rain near

Volcano, where I get off,

Knees pink in cold rain

“If you have a place

To stay,” and I do, today’s

Ferns backlit with flame.