The man on the park bench reads in his bed:
everything wrinkled, worn, and yellow,
ill-fitting pants lined at the seam with buttons,
once silver, shoe blown out,
cigarette burned to the butt,
the book held not selected,
my angled vision almost aligning
with his, at me and back
to the aged pages bent back, a last glance
perhaps
for that particular incarnation of a text.
I note: reading is a skill
used for many purposes. And how many
has he known? How many
selections have been foreclosed by whatever
brought him with a blown-out shoe to the street—
or shall I decide that someone who can pick
up a book cannot make a bed—
without a line to hang a sheet,
without the means to wash a line?
The Mockingbird Sings 