chances are / spies

and it is late in the miracle evening and
a soft savage breeze demarcates the remnant sand caught between eyelids and
angry language and
it is a kind of strength he
finds himself saying to no one

it will be weeks someday
at some point he will eat a muffin
or stamp out a capricious cockroach before bedtime and
like every other dead thing it will
be dancing
patient in the tufts of his hair
it is arguable that he will be listening to music
or reading a random book from his shelf by the guide of a torn
receipt shoved meaningfully in at page 97
he will give a woman money for a thin bottle of clear rum and
she will hand it to him with practiced boredom

chances
are
he will remember the lines in that Peter S. Beagle novel again
the ones that circled his pre-adolescent mind feverishly
utterly rapt
almost repulsed by
their symmetry and ungainly honesty
he will walk a short circuit through a one bedroom apartment
speaking with someone on the phone and instantly forget who he was
speaking with until their voice returns
he will consider this no meager victory

there will be long pauses followed by cruel activities
he will step on her foot in the crowded bus
a child will kick him gently as he exits

back on the streets
he will be staring at a sign for a breakfast special in a faceless restaurant for a while
he will not know or understand if he wants to eat here
someone nearby will be angry at someone else
somehow this will cause him to come to a decision

he will remember the lines in an old novel
in the way one recalls closing a book
more intimately
than opening it