Tony
In the urn of the lengthening day
The man who will die on my street
Is walking backward toward traffic
With his shirt on backward,
A bright orange vest, backward, and
His dirty white hair straight up
As if it were fire.
The rush of a sunset briefly
Appeases him by making windows vivid.
Then a dusk of gray lilacs.
An acrobatic bend of hillside
Seems to prolong the impossibility
Of his salvation. Though
Beleaguered, his brain is stuck on
Hope. (My girlfriend,
The German film-maker, is pregnant—
With twins! he says, …
