A Poem
Gilbert’s eyes could carry me to the moon.
The sheer force of his look: hollow, grotesque
Haunted like we picked him from the pound.
In reality, he has no guardian, no owner,
But someone does provide him with a new coat-
Tracksuit jacket, bomber jacket, pulled from the anals of fashion
And placed on his shoulders, unknowing.
In the summer, the coats come off to reveal
Arms like a Rodin, sinewy and grand,
Outsize hands that clutch at the air,
Like they belong to the Burger of Calais;
His wrists free now, but his mind shackled.
Some days I see him and he smiles slowly
Like a parent playing peekaboo.
Other days he looks up slowly
And the recognition comes as if through a fog.
On those days, the big hands are active
With a tremor, with a coffee cup, with a cigarette,
And I can hear small moans from his damaged mouth,
Tongue like a slug, making its slow way
Backwards across his words.
On sharp days,
He is already in line by the time I arrive for my coffee,
The hazy recognition replaced by a sullen gloom.
Hands in pockets, eyes focused downward,
He looks like a man from the FDR memorial.
They keep a tab by the cash register,
And every once in a while I take a look:
Mostly coffee, but also eight dollars for a lavender honey.
I picture those big hands dipping into the pot of honey,
Tasting the lavender, lavender and cigarette ash.
It is so hard to picture it.
Those eyes, cast to the ground-
He grants me no access.
