db cox
american business card

the pitchless hum
of an idling greyhound

combines with the suffocating
fumes of diesel fuel
to soak the night air
with noisy poison

a skinny panhandler,
wearing a kid’s spiderman tee-shirt,
sits crumpled, like lost luggage,
outside the brownsville
bus depot

hard times & places
chiseled across his face –
engravings
on a tombstone

two hollow eyes,
like piss-holes in the snow,
stare blankly
at the human caravan

flowing along with
a totally assured sense
of destination

there’s a wrinkled
square of cardboard
at his side—a kind of
faded-brown, contemporary

american business card
the fractured graffitti,
“out of work”,
scrawled across the front

one look at this guy,
& you know he’s
done for—& knows it—
still, his accusing eyes
look up at me,
as if i could save him

the pitchless hum
of an idling greyhound……………………  
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