I take your difficult hand

and then take it to heart,

its shake, its old bone

You are old, wicked, and full

of memories, though they shed

now like the leaves from an elm

*

Soaked, in your thin felt jacket

and Milwaukee Brewers ball cap,

next to the Bank of Bellwood,

“It’s a catch 32!” you shout, with

a smile, laughing through your last

three teeth, beneath the walk/wait

light that sparks, smokes, stutters

*

“Every darn car’s a dirty gray, see,

and half of ’em are foreign” you growl

Squinting, you can’t quite make out the forty

point pica headlining today’s USA Today,

or the bright red blurb taped at an odd angle

to the bent green lamppost, a St Mary’s

broadside: ‘Chuckwagon Dinner!

Saturday Night! / Help the Homeless!’

*

With a certain willingness

then, you died. That had always

been the projection. It was June, or

March, one of those charitable months

when they drive at dimes or dollars

for a paper flower or a car wash

If terror, there was no collaboration

in it. Your pain was always your own,

and the few cries, they said,

were muffled, and routine

*

The days are lean now, nights fat and smooth

The smoke and the roses are a memory

All this is plenty

Enough for now