There are those you meet
on summer days
wearing shorts and carrying books
who will take you into their chambers
window thrown wide and spilling frost into Florida sun
to talk and breathe deep the life of end-of-century

And those who wear the tatters of words borrowed with smile
from those we love
and would never know
eyes behind glasses blue and searching

And those who pose in grocery mirrors
distorted for the lens which blurs under the New Orleans night
as you walk from bar to bar, arm in arm,
the street passing reflections of bootsteps light with youth
and clean from rain

There are those you love
that you want to beat with sticks
for making your mistakes for you
and growing roots in infertile clay

And those who’s blood runs coffee and oil
and who’s fingers itch for metal and typewriter keys
but sleep groaning like {exhausted} children

And there are those you will find again,
those you see faintly through colors
and the fluorescence of vacuum tubes,
those who look back at you with a cocked head and eyebrow raised,
knowing you better than the teeth in your skull
or the hands that remember their home.