When you’re thirty, you’re supposed to know
things already. You’re supposed to have
your **** together. A wife, maybe
even a kid. But this man still felt
like a boy. Shrugging life away
with cigarettes stealthily
torn from the box,
afternoon breaks
whistling through the
scabby throat, weeping silently
into his cigarette, smiling empty through
the golden tint of a pitcher of beer. Sadness sat
in his eyes and it never seemed to go away. The sadness
made him look younger, more innocent. He thought no one noticed.

But someone did.