Thursday
is his day
or is it
mine
the day i pull
up
spent
tired
empty
of all the things
they
look
for me to have
ventilated ‘gainst
Summer
i sit
remembering ice
remembering snow
remembering
Cold
trickling down
my neck
reminding myself,
my bleary
sweating
self, just how
much
i hate it, will hate it
when it
comes
again
then
he
appears
the day’s uneaten
crumbs
nestled
in a wrinkled MrsBaird’s
bag
hung
loose
from his arm
his shirt sleeves
stuffed
like pickled onions
into the olives
of his ill-fitting
gloves,
his baggy khakis
stuffed
like pale sausages
into the stumps
of his too-large
boots
he
turns
to me
away from
his feeders
unsmiling
and i wonder
as he stands
brown on brown on tan on
tan
do they
regard
him
as a god,
these grackles
these killdeer
these gray cat-
birds, who swarm
hungrily
at his feet
and i think
how better
how
much
better
it must
be
to be a
god
a God
than
just
to be
simply
only
one
more
tired
wizened
used up
lonely
old
man
who fills the
volunteer bird
feeders
at the
place
he will
die
at the
place
that holds not a
trace
of how
he has
lived
©s rogers 20 august 2011
