They are everywhere,
these itinerant wanderers,
bards of the road,
chickens roosting on fences,
with their boxes before them,
pennies and quarters.
And their eyes never meet yours,
contempt or shame,
or remote viewing,
burned fragments of friends,
childhood, confusion.
They each have a station
along the boardwalk,
by the blank walls waiting for offerings,
and my pocket lightens
until there are no more coins,
no more guilt.
How can the world rise flaming in the east,
the grand opera of the sun
come like a charging stallion?
And the sky lift like a great portal,
to see them sit wretched as birds
by the parliament buildings and strollers?
There is nothing for them
sitting in their dark imaginal dreams.
Could they be me,
or you?
The folio of a life gone wrong?
I waver,
and my hands tremble,
the beggar in me, afraid.