The Cacographer

Hometown (Draft 2 - final line: 'in' or 'with'?)

As I am, I am no
more than a cardigan and a pipe
a red dawn glowing in a sea of smoke
a glint of yellowed teeth
at the end of a stick.

And all day,
I see the men in pinstripes
and the women in vinyl
ambling and striding and unaware
of my dead wife 5 miles away.

And all night
no one passes my broken stoop
except a hooker named Patsy
with a gyrating walk that looks
more drunk than anything.

Occasionally
I see tall men thumping
the concrete on padded heels
dragging a new dog or a new baby
gladly pulling against reluctance

Once in a while
the click clacking stops
and a woman’s eye peers
at my stoop, trying to
pierce the yellow halogen haze

And trying to see
they tentatively step toward
my knuckled hands and
my blue jean knees
until, explosive, I harangue them.

I never say much.
No more than half a story
“You think you can fix me?”
“I’m not your project,
I’m not your esteem.”

And they scuttle
like exposed crabs
or like the day to night
or like the empty cockles
the husks rattling in my chest.

And, now and then
I let my heavy brow remember
the jewelry on your hand
the surgical mask in my own house
and white lilies in winter.

Fuming in the day,
a ventilator of smoke
and rosy dawn in my pipe
I sink into halogen and cardigan
my broken hands, and wait in the past.

posted by OrangeDrink @ 1:47:00 AM