Saturday, October 08, 2005

this is more of a prose poem, based on a real moment in time. s


street man


there was a street man downtown
when i was seventeen and still fresh
and opening to new things. a streetman
so tall and so thin that i'd look
to see if he was breathing and not some
60's group hallucination.

once a week he'd come into the lunch counter
that was across the street from the college.
a street man, dressed in a dusty outdated tux
a pair of hot pink, clean ladies panties pinned
to the back of the tux jacket, i didn't know why
i should have asked, but

he was a street man and it was the 60's
and he could've been a narc or a headcase
we were afraid of narcs, most of us
hell, we were headcases. most streetmen were too,
most, not all.

my streetman, i'd watch to catch him breathe
wondered about the panties, looked to see if
he acted like a narc and since i was only seventeen
and open to new things, after some time

asked him why he wore a tux, while trying
to pretend those damn panties weren't there
or so pink. he looked at me, looked at me deep
looking i think for that openness

touched the side of my cheek with the tip of his finger
leaned in as if for a first kiss. me, well i didn't move
i didn't breathe. i might have let him kiss me
i think i just might have.

the streetman smiled and said so very softly
" i know why, robert kennedy was really killed."
then turned away and walked out.

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