today even the outside
needs an overcoat
as branches cut light
into slivers across city streets
I’m bent over walking
like I’m a hundred
years old because today
like every day
I’m a hundred miles
from healthy an hour
late a dollar short
and I’m caught in
a laughing nightmare
a strangers dry kiss
and I’m not this tall
so I can not be
on this ride
so I walk the long way
back toward something
I think I lost long long ago
between the graveyard
and the ball field
between the factory
and the ship yard
and just because I lost it
doesn’t mean I don’t need it
its older than the language
of my grandfather and useful
as a one eyed man in the
land of the blind looking
for the devil in the details
and the angels in the ruins.
