Red hat
pulled over the  eyes

homespun clothes
and a white wavy beard

and every day as I walk by
I ask you

what's the good word

thinking someday
you will speak

and tell me how to find
the door

You and I
with so much history
no

hyperbole

that hangs on us
like bad-fitting clothes
and it's all so

complicated

Gauze
or some tape

to cover a scrape
or scratch

that we tell ourselves
is only a temporary solution

but then
ends up another

permanent accessory
to our makeshift lives

Water drips on them
like Chinese Water Torture

as a film of food slime
coats the ceramic

and you have to ask yourself
one question

was it worth it

Tonight
the sky is strewn with stars

like diamonds
that have long stopped twinkling

and now

cut

They're tacked along
an outcropping of wall

and one droops because
of a missing tack

and after all these years
we've never fixed it

I guess politics
is war

and war begats wounds
which turn to scars

and then

badges

I hobble along
thinking

broken toe
blistered pad

these leaves back to back
they fall

flopping

on top of each
other