encounter poem
Downtown I smelled the wind
underneath sewer smoke as I
passed an old man who looked like
he had crawled out of a street lamp.
I asked him where the nearest Starbucks
was, I have to deliver this poem.
He insisted on walking with me
half-way, until the expensive shoes
rattled close. The sky was shifting into
a pulse. In the distance, lightning
chiseled open the asphalt . This, he said,
is proof that forgiveness disrupts the
smooth pattern, and that insight corrupts
the dignified mind. A pair of leaves followed
him into the alley.